CTO / Technical Lead - AI Legal SaaS Platform

Position: Fractional CTO / Technical Lead

Engagement: Part-time (15-20 hours/week) or Full-time

Location: 13, Ring Road, Lajpat Nagar IV, New Delhi - 110024

Experience: 8+ years in software development, 3+ years in technical leadership

Domain: SaaS, AI/ML, Legal Tech preferred

About the Project

We're building an AI-powered SaaS platform for Indian legal professionals featuring intelligent document analysis, legal drafting, and workflow automation. Think Harvey.ai meets Indian law. This is a greenfield project with a 3-month timeline to MVP.

Your mission: Architect, build, and lead the technical execution from concept to production launch.

Your Responsibilities

1. Technical Architecture & Strategy

• Design end-to-end system architecture (frontend, backend, AI/ML, infrastructure)
• Choose optimal tech stack balancing speed, scalability, and budget
• Define data architecture: relational DB, vector DB, document storage strategy
• Design API architecture and microservices boundaries (if applicable)
• Create technical roadmap aligned with business milestones (MVP in 1-2months)
• Make build vs. buy decisions (e.g., use OpenAI vs. self-hosted models)
• Architect for multi-tenancy, security, and compliance from day one

2. AI/ML Strategy & Oversight

• Define AI architecture: RAG pipeline, vector database, embedding strategy
• Decide LLM approach: OpenAI/Claude API vs. fine-tuned open-source models
• Guide AI engineer on model selection, fine-tuning on Indian legal corpus
• Design prompt engineering framework and context management for 4,000-page documents
• Architect playbook system (firm preferences, risk rules) integration with AI
• Ensure AI outputs are explainable, cite sources correctly, and meet legal standards
• Implement bias checks, disclaimers, and ethical AI practices
• Optimize for cost (LLM API costs can spiral quickly)

3. Team Leadership & Management

• Hire, onboard, and manage a team of 3-5 developers: AI/ML Engineer, NLP/Document Processing Engineer, Backend Engineer, Frontend Engineer (React/Next.js), (Optional) DevOps/Cloud Engineer
• Conduct technical interviews and assess candidate skills
• Assign tasks, set sprint goals, track progress
• Code review and maintain code quality standards
• Unblock team members and resolve technical bottlenecks
• Foster collaboration between AI and backend teams

4. Product Development & Execution

• Break down product requirements into technical tasks and user stories
• Define sprint cycles and ensure timely delivery (Agile/Scrum)
• Prioritize features for MVP: what must ship vs. what can wait
• CTO / Technical Lead - AI Legal SaaS Platform 2
• Work closely with product owner/founder on feature scoping
• Balance speed vs. quality: ship fast but build it right
• Conduct weekly demos and stakeholder updates
• Manage technical debt and refactoring decisions

5. Security, Compliance & Legal

• Implement security best practices:
• End-to-end encryption for legal documents
• Role-based access control (RBAC)
• Audit logging and activity tracking
• Secure API authentication (OAuth 2.0/JWT)
• Ensure data privacy compliance (GDPR, Indian data protection laws)
• Design for cybersecurity: rate limiting, DDoS protection, penetration testing
• Handle sensitive legal data with appropriate access controls
• Set up disaster recovery and backup strategies

6. Infrastructure & DevOps

• Choose cloud provider (AWS/Azure/GCP) and set up infrastructure
• Design scalable deployment architecture (containers, serverless, Kubernetes)
• Set up CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and deployment
• Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting (e.g., Datadog, Sentry, CloudWatch)
• Optimize cloud costs (especially AI inference and storage)
• Plan for horizontal scaling as user base grows
• Set up staging and production environments

7. Integration & Third-Party Services

Integrate with:

• Google Drive, Dropbox (document sync)
• CTO / Technical Lead - AI Legal SaaS Platform 3
• Google Vision API, Tesseract (OCR)
• OpenAI/Claude/Anthropic APIs
• Indian legal databases (SCC Online, Manupatra, Indian Kanoon)
• Payment gateways (Razorpay, Stripe)
• Email (SendGrid, AWS SES), Calendar APIs

Design webhook systems for real-time notifications

Handle API rate limits, retries, and fallback mechanisms

8. Quality Assurance & Testing

• Define testing strategy: unit, integration, end-to-end tests
• Set up automated testing frameworks (Jest, Pytest, Cypress)
• Conduct user acceptance testing (UAT) with beta users
• Performance testing: load testing, stress testing (e.g., 100 concurrent users)
• Security audits and penetration testing before launch
• Bug triage and fix prioritization

9. Documentation & Knowledge Transfer

• Document system architecture, API specifications (Swagger/OpenAPI)
• Create technical documentation for handoff to internal team
• Write deployment guides, runbooks, troubleshooting docs
• Maintain code documentation and best practices guide
• Knowledge transfer sessions with team for post-launch maintenance

10. Post-Launch Support

• Provide 1 month of post-launch support for critical bugs
• Monitor system performance and optimize bottlenecks
• Set up analytics dashboard for tracking platform usage
• Plan for scaling and feature enhancements post-MVP
• Handoff to internal team or recommend long-term technical leadership

Must-Have Qualifications

Technical Expertise:

• 8+ years of software development experience (full-stack preferred)
• 3+ years in technical leadership or CTO/VP Engineering roles
• Deep expertise in backend development (Node.js, Python, or similar)
• Strong understanding of AI/ML systems, especially LLMs and RAG architecture
• Experience building SaaS platforms from 0 to 1
• Proficiency in system design and scalable architecture
• Cloud infrastructure expertise (AWS/Azure/GCP)
• Database design (SQL and NoSQL)
• API design and microservices architecture
• DevOps and CI/CD experience

AI/ML Knowledge:

• Hands-on experience with LLM integration (OpenAI, Claude, or open-source models)
• Understanding of RAG pipelines, vector databases, embeddings
• Knowledge of LangChain, LangGraph, or similar AI frameworks
• Experience optimizing AI systems for cost and performance
• Familiarity with fine-tuning models (bonus)

Leadership & Soft Skills:

• Proven track record of leading engineering teams(3-10 people)
• Experience hiring and mentoring developers
• Strong project management skills: Agile/Scrum, sprint planning
• Excellent communication: ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• Comfortable making decisions under uncertainty and tight deadlines
• Experience with early-stage startups or MVP development
• Self-starter who can work independently

Bonus Points:

• Prior experience in legal tech, fintech, or compliance-heavy industries
• Knowledge of Indian legal system and legal workflows
• Experience building document-heavy applications(contract management, e-discovery)
• Background in NLP, OCR, or document processing
• Experience with workflow automation engines(n8n, Temporal, Zapier-like tools)
• Open-source contributions or technical blog/speaking experience
• Experience with Indian market and regulatory environment