Head of Engineering & Operations / CTO

About the job

About cyon

Since 2003, we have been helping people bring their ideas to the internet, today for around 50,000 customers. We are an owner-managed company with around 50 employees and operate our platform in Basel with 100% renewable energy.

We stand for personal support, simple products, and digital self-determination. Our customers should be able to shape their digital space independently of large platforms. Their data remains in Switzerland.

We are developing cyon from a successful hosting provider into a platform where people and AI agents can implement digital projects easily, securely, and autonomously. For this, we are looking for a technical leader who ensures our reliable operation while shaping the technological future of cyon.

Your tasks

• Leadership You lead and develop our employees in Engineering & Operations. You strengthen personal responsibility, develop leaders, and create structures in which teams can collaborate effectively and make good decisions.
• Strategy and priorities As a member of the executive management, you bear responsibility for cyon as a whole. You are responsible for the budget, personnel planning, and resource allocation of your area and translate product goals together with Business Development into a binding technical roadmap.
• Architecture and operations Together with experienced engineers, you further develop the target architecture of our software and infrastructure and ensure that decisions are made and implemented. With your teams, you guarantee secure operation around the clock. This includes monitoring, on-call duty, incident management, backup, and disaster recovery. At the same time, you selectively modernise our existing systems.
• “AI first, human accountable” You make AI-supported and agent-based working methods a natural part of our engineering organisation. You recognise where AI creates real added value, promote targeted use, and ensure quality, security, and human responsibility.
• Security and data protection You are responsible for technical information security, the protection of our infrastructure, and the implementation of technical data protection requirements. You further develop security standards and risk management together with the executive management.

What you bring

• Leadership experience You have led technical organisations and developed leaders. Your leadership style combines trust and freedom with clear expectations and accountability. You address difficult topics openly and respectfully.
• Technical depth You have developed software yourself and designed architectures and are also at home in infrastructure (Linux, virtualisation, network, storage) and DevOps practices (CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code). You do not have to be the deepest expert in every field but can assess technical proposals in detail and make well-founded decisions.
• AI in practice AI tools and agent-based working methods are already part of your work reality. You can demonstrate with concrete examples how you have improved work with them and know where human control remains indispensable for quality, security, and data protection.
• Experience with change You have modernised grown systems during ongoing operations without endangering day-to-day business. You set clear priorities, decide even with incomplete information, and weigh customer benefit, technical quality, effort, and risk against each other.
• Additional basics You have a solid understanding of IT security and experience with distributed teams. You communicate very well in German and well in English. Experience in hosting or cloud environments or with PHP platforms is a plus.

What we offer you

• Entrepreneurial scope for design You are a member of the executive management and help shape the technological and strategic future of an independent Swiss company.
• Clear decision-making authority You decide within your budget on technology, architecture, standards, and procurement. Short decision-making paths enable you to actually make changes.
• Flexibility and recovery Flexible annual working hours, 25 days of holiday, 27 days from the 5th year of service, and 30 days from the 10th year of service, as well as home office and workations within the framework of our remote policy.
• Work environment and development A modern office in Basel, individual workplace equipment, and a team that develops technology with passion and responsibility, as well as time and budget for your further development.

Get in touch

Curious? Then apply with your CV and relevant certificates. We look forward to getting to know you.