Chief of Staff - Engineering

Role : Chief of Staff - Engineering

Location : IBC Knowledge Park, Bangalore.

Reporting to : CTO

Team name : Founders’ Office

About the Team and the Role

As the Chief of Staff to the CTO, your primary mandate is to drive operational harmony across our 1000+ person engineering organization. You will eliminate the friction caused by fragmented practices, standardize our technical "DNA" and own the strategic rhythms that keep our leadership aligned. You are the CTO's proxy in negotiations, the architect of our engineering culture, and the guardian of our scaling efficiency.

Responsibilities

1. Technical Governance & Standardization (Scaling the "How")

• The Template Task Force: Establish a unified engineering language. You will lead the transition from departmental silos to engineering organization-wide standards e.g. 8D Problem Solving, FMEA, Technical Spec Sheets, and Budgeting.
• Knowledge Architecture: Design and maintain the global Information Structure (folder hierarchies, technical libraries) to ensure that 800 engineers aren't reinventing the wheel.
• Technical Democratization: Creating tools which democratise certain skills making them accessible to every team member, not just a few specialists.

2. People Strategy & Organizational Development

• Harmonization of Practices: Lead the standardization of Competency Mapping and Engineering Career Ladders across all engineering departments to ensure fair and consistent growth.
• GET & New Hire Training: Own the end-to-end curriculum for the Graduate Engineer Trainee (GET) program and lateral hire onboarding to ensure cultural and technical alignment from Day 1.
• Space & Productivity: Negotiate and manage the physical layout and seating across departments to optimize for collaboration and cross-functional flow. Participate in new infrastructure creation

3. Strategic Rhythms & Leadership Facilitation

• The Fellowship of Engineering (FoE): Own the fortnightly leadership meet. You will set the high-impact agenda, facilitate the session, and—crucially—drive the execution of action items across department heads.
• Engineering All-Hands: Curate the narrative for the entire organization, preparing content, visuals, and Posters that reinforce our vision and celebrate technical wins.
• Tight OKR Reviews: Run a rigorous, data-driven OKR cycle. You will identify risks before they become failures and ensure departmental goals ladder up to the CTO’s vision.

4. External Interface & Compliance (The SPOC)

• Audits & Regulatory: Act as the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for govt applications, government schemes, and external audits.
• EHS Leadership: Ensure that Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) standards are not just met but are a core part of the engineering culture.
• Budget Negotiation: Act as the CTO's filter for budget requests, negotiating with department managers to balance resource needs with overall departmental constraints.

Experience and Qualifications

• Engineering pedigree with the technical IQ required to interface effectively with department heads.
• Overall 8-10 years of experience with 4-5 years in hands-on engineering and 3-4 years in program management.

Must Have Competencies

• Product development exposure. Either as an Engineer or as Program manager
• Operational Rigor:Needs to enjoy building systems, structures, and templates that work for 1,000+ people. Very high digital quotient.
• High EQ Negotiation: Ability to align multiple individuals with different priority to come to common grounds
• Learnability and Logical thinking: Ability to absorb new topics and quickly start contributing to them logically

Want to know more?

At Ather, we’ve built India’s first intelligent scooter, from scratch. Based on the philosophy of clean design and smart technology, we are transforming the urban commute experience. We are expanding in India, and in the coming years, we look forward to scaling up and launching more products globally. Today, our product offerings include the Ather 450X, 450S, 450 Apex, and Rizta. Beyond the product, we are also setting up an extensive charging network and re-imagining end-to-end ownership experience. To know more, check out our Careers site and our Substack.

Be You, With Us

The Ather story doesn't write itself - our people do. We believe everyone is equal, but not the same. Diversity is our strength, and building an inclusive and equitable workplace begins with acknowledging and embracing our differences. We are an equal opportunity employer, and our team reflects a wide range of identities, experiences, and perspectives - all united by a shared passion to shape the Ather journey.