Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Company Description

Canadian Bank Note Company (CBN) is a leader and trusted provider of secure document and adjacent enterprise-level system solutions across the following domains: border security, civil identity, driver licence/identification and vehicle information, excise control, currency, lotteries and charitable gaming.

Our Corporate Philosophy and 7 Core Principles shape and guide our corporate behaviours and underpin the sense of community you will experience at CBN. We seek long-term relationships with our employees and offer a competitive compensation package that includes health, medical and life insurance benefits and a defined contribution pension plan with company matching.

Job Description

Job Title : Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Reports To : Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Peers : Chief Product Officer (CPO), Systems

Job Type : Permanent, Full-Time

Job Location : Ottawa, ON

Work Model : Hybrid

Job Status : Existing Vacancy

Mandatory Requirements

• Must be legally eligible to work in Canada
• Must be able to obtain/maintain Government of Canada Secret (Level II) security clearance
• Must be able to travel occasionally to support global customer engagements

Opportunity Overview

CBN is building a next-generation civilian foundational identity platform for governments around the world. We are evolving from a portfolio of standalone, customer-specific solutions to a unified platform that provides, modern foundation for identity, credentialing, and border management at national scale.

This Chief Technology Officer (CTO) role sits within our Identity Solutions business unit, a strategic growth area for the organization. This is a foundational leadership opportunity to define the engineering culture, architecture, and organization behind the platform while accelerating an AI-driven transformation. You will partner closely with the product organization, engage directly with government customers worldwide, and set technical direction for products that touch the lives of millions of citizens globally.

If you want to build technology that matters on a national scale, with the sponsorship and investment to do it, this is the role.

Position Summary

As Chief Technology Officer (CTO) you will be accountable for the end-to-end technology strategy, architecture, engineering delivery, and production operations of CBN’s next-generation, highly regulated identity and credential platform.

You will build on and lead a high-performing engineering organization while balancing speed, security and reliability. You will also serve as a key external technology leader, representing the technology agenda to customers, regulators, partners, and the board, bringing a strong customer orientation to ensure the platform evolves from real government needs and multi-year delivery commitments.

This is a transformation focused CTO role, combining platform modernization, disciplined delivery, and AI‑enabled engineering at scale.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Strategy and Architecture

• Own and drive the target platform architecture, technology roadmap, and key technology decisions
• Balance near-term delivery priorities with long-term scalability, maintainability, and architectural integrity
• Establish architectural governance and enable reusable platform capabilities across deployments

Delivery Execution and Operating Model

• Drive disciplined, predictable delivery against customer commitments and contractual milestones
• Establish and evolve a scalable technology operating model (governance, planning, prioritization, execution)
• Ensure transparent reporting of delivery progress, risks, and outcomes

AI-Enabled Engineering Transformation

• Embed AI-enabled development practices across the SDLC (engineering, testing, documentation, operations)
• Improve speed, quality, and productivity through measurable outcomes (e.g., cycle time, quality, reliability)
• Lead adoption of modern engineering practices while maintaining strong controls and standards

Regulated Deployments and Operations

• Enable deployment across customer-controlled environments (including on-premises and restricted connectivity)
• Ensure robust “Day 2” operations (patching, observability, incident response, configuration management)
• Design solutions that are operable in real-world, highly regulated government environments

Reliability, SRE, and Production Operations

• Establish and mature SRE practices, observability standards, incident management, and release governance
• Lead major incident response and drive continuous operational improvement
• Ensure overall platform reliability, resilience, and performance

Security, Privacy, and Compliance

• Partner with enterprise teams to embed secure-by-design and privacy-by-design principles
• Ensure audit readiness and compliance with applicable standards (e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001/27701)
• Integrate security and compliance into engineering workflows, architecture, and delivery practices

External Technology Leadership

• Engage directly with government customers, procurement stakeholders, regulators, and partners
• Support technical discovery, solution shaping, and delivery confidence
• Translate technical complexity into clear, executive-level communication

Organizational Leadership

• Build and lead a high-performing engineering leadership team across multiple domains
• Establish a culture of accountability, technical excellence, and continuous improvement
• Develop talent, strengthen leadership bench, and drive succession planning across the organization

Customer-Led Platform Evolution

• Partner with Product and customer-facing leaders to translate government needs into scalable platform capabilities
• Incorporate feedback from deployments to improve usability, operability, and time-to-value
• Balance customer-driven enhancements with long-term platform and architectural integrity

Product and Go-to-Market Partnership

• Operate as a close peer to the Chief Product Officer and broader Go-To-Market leadership
• Ensure roadmap commitments are technically viable, appropriately sequenced, and aligned to platform strategy
• Support customer engagements where required to strengthen credibility and delivery confidence

Qualifications

Executive engineering leadership

• 15+ years in software engineering leadership, including 5+ years as a CTO, SVP Engineering, or equivalent, with accountability for delivery, operations, and outcomes.

Platform at scale

• Demonstrated success building and operating a customer-facing platform with high availability, strong security posture, and mature operational practices.

AI-native engineering leadership

• Demonstrated experience shipping production software using AI-assisted development practices across the engineering organization (e.g., coding copilots, AI-driven testing, automation, and DevOps), with measurable improvements in throughput, quality, and/or reliability.

Regulated environments

• Experience delivering in highly regulated contexts (e.g., government, identity, financial services, payments, healthcare, or critical infrastructure) and navigating enterprise security reviews, audits, and procurement requirements.

Deployment complexity

• Hands-on experience supporting customer-controlled deployments (on-premises and/or dedicated cloud) and operating under restricted connectivity where applicable.

Technical breadth and depth

• Strong grounding in distributed systems, cloud architecture, IAM, encryption/key management, secure SDLC, observability, and risk management, with sound judgment on modern platform trade-offs in highly regulated environments.

Organizational leadership

• Proven ability to hire and lead senior engineering leaders, scale teams across geographies, build succession, and create a culture of excellence and accountability.

Executive communication

• Credible, clear communicator with executives, boards, customers, and regulators; able to explain complex trade-offs and earn trust.

Additional Information

Equal Opportunity Statement

Our organization is committed to employment equity and diversity in the workplace. We actively encourage applications from women, Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities, members of visible minorities, and LGBTQ2+ individuals.

We are dedicated to removing barriers and fostering an inclusive workplace that reflects society and we are committed to providing an accessible and inclusive recruitment process in accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

If you require accommodation at any stage of the hiring process, please contact us at [email protected] so that appropriate arrangements can be made.