Head of Engineering Telecom / VAS Platform
Experience: 15–20 years Location: Gurugram — On-site Reports to: Co-Founder Trajectory: CTO
track
THE COMPANY
The Company is a telecom technology company building for mobile operators. Its platforms run inside live
operator networks across 180+ operators in 80+ countries, reaching more than a billion users, with
engineering and delivery based in Gurugram and Chennai. This role leads engineering for the platform
business — a carrier-grade Value-Added Services portfolio including SmartConnect AI, Magic Voice, Caller
Ring-Back Tone (CRBT), Billing and mobile gaming. The AI line, EVA, is built by a separate sister organization
and is not part of this role.
WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS
The platform is the company's revenue engine — the systems 180+ operators depend on every day. Its
engineering organization is run today at Director level, reporting straight into a co-founder. That worked while
the team was small. A platform at this scale now needs senior technical leadership of its own. The real problem
is not headcount — it is maturity. This role brings architecture ownership, delivery discipline and an
engineering culture built to scale — and takes that load off the co-founder.
WHAT YOU’LL OWN
01 Teams, systems and process
• Build real team structure inside the platform organization — clear ownership, defined squads, named
accountability.
• Introduce a single delivery and release cadence the whole org runs on.
• Set OKRs at team level and the engineering metrics leadership tracks against.
• Turn a founder-led group into a structured, senior-led engineering organization.
02 The platforms already earning
• Enhance and modernize what is live and generating revenue — Billing, Calling / Voice, SmartConnect AI,
Magic Voice, CRBT.
• Protect revenue-critical paths across 80+ countries while you improve them.
• Own reliability, throughput, observability and incident response at the bar operators demand.
03 Quality — build the QA function
• Stand up a proper QA organization from scratch — test strategy, automation, release gates.
• The standard is unambiguous: the product runs first time, at the operator, without issues.
• Own the definition of “production-ready” and enforce it.
04 Lateral hiring — build the senior bench
• Hire the engineering leadership layer the platform needs, starting with an IVR Head and a Billing Head, plus
the engineers beneath them.




• Bring the pedigree and the network to attract and retain senior telecom talent.
• Partner with Human Resources on levelling and the assessment-led selection standard.
05 Pre-sales — make engineering a weapon in the sale
• Streamline technical documentation and solution presentations into a repeatable standard.
• Get technical go-ahead from telco engineering and architecture teams quickly — compress the time from first
technical conversation to sign-off.
06 Delivery — get things launched
• Own the delivery engine end to end; mobilize teams quickly alongside operator counterparts.
• Explicit technical blockers and drive integrations through to commercial launch.
• Marshal cross-functional teams to hit launch dates — speed is the deliverable.
07 New product development
• Name CLI / CNAP — calling name presentation.
• Child safety on data — a data-side safety product for operators.
• Own these from architecture through to operator trial.
08 Technical strategy and CTO trajectory

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• Set a multi-year platform roadmap that holds revenue steady while the stack modernizes.
• Make the build-versus-buy and consolidation calls that decide cost and speed.
• Represent platform engineering to the co-founders, the executive team and — over time — to operators, as
the company’s senior technology voice.
YOUR FIRST YEAR
30 — LISTEN & MAP
• Meet the platform team and its leadership.
• Map the stack and the real state of delivery.
• Name the top three technical and organizational risks.
90 — OPERATING MODEL
• Team structure and ownership defined.
• One delivery and release cadence live; OKRs set for every team.
• QA function stood up.
• Billing and Calling enhancement plans agreed.
• IVR Head and Billing Head searches underway.
180 — ARCHITECTURE
• Platform architecture and modernization roadmap published.
• First measurable gains in stability and throughput.
• Priority lateral hires closed.
• Pre-sales and delivery running to standard.




• Name CLI and child-safety builds kicked off.
365 — OWN THE ROADMAP
• A funded multi-year platform roadmap.
• A structured, senior-led engineering organization.
• New products in operator trials.
• Formal CTO transition plan in motion.
WHO WE’RE LOOKING FOR
The binding constraint
• The scarce candidate pairs deep telecom / VAS platform domain with modern engineering-leadership
discipline.
• Telecom depth is the priority here — it is the harder gap to teach.
Must have — all of the following
• Seniority: 15 to 20 years in software engineering, with substantial time leading engineering organizations and
managing managers.
• Team scale: Has led teams of 30–50 spanning development, QA, DevOps and R&D; / innovation across
multiple product lines.
• Telecom domain: Deep expertise in Telephony, IVR, SIP, Networks, IN, SDP and Billing systems.
• Data-side working knowledge: PCRF, GGSN and adjacent elements.
• Built for telco: Has developed products for the telecom domain — owned high-throughput, high-availability
systems live in operator networks, not prototypes.
• Hands-on to strategic: Can still reason about architecture and code, and can set multi-year technical strategy.
Neither a pure people-manager nor a pure individual contributor.
• Full lifecycle: Owned the whole engineering framework — design development testing
production-ready product ecosystem.
• Scaling curve: Has taken products through the 10100 and 1001000 growth journey.
• Delivery & solutioning: Very strong on technical delivery with solutioning expertise — can shape a solution in
front of an operator’s technical team and then deliver it.
• Talent magnet: Can build and hire the best talent; the pedigree and credibility to attract and retain senior
engineers.
• Location: Based in or relocating to Gurugram. On-site leadership of a Gurugram-based team.
Background we expect

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• Senior engineering leadership built at product companies serving telecom and enterprise clients —
comparable telecom product organizations.
Also valuable
• Experience with IVR and AI-assisted solutions for telco customer-care agents.
• Modernizing a legacy platform without downtime.
• Global, distributed operator delivery.
• Turning a founder-led engineering group into a structured organization.
• Exposure to emerging markets.

📌 Engineering Head (Gurugram)
🏢 Singlefocus Services
📍 Gurugram