Fractional CTO - Technology & ERP Lead

ABOUT COMPANY: US Ecommerce Remote Startup Company is a fast-growing US-based premium architectural hardware company — designing, manufacturing, and selling luxury hardware products including curtain rod systems, door handles, handrails, shelving systems, and custom architectural hardware to homeowners, architects, and hotels across the United States. We have a distributed global team across India, the Philippines, and the US — with manufacturing operations in India, design engineering in the Philippines, and commercial operations in the US. We sell across Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, and Wayfair — and are scaling rapidly across all functions. We are now looking for a Fractional CTO to own our entire technology strategy and ERP infrastructure — someone who has done this before at a startup and can guide us through our next phase of growth. THE ROLE This is not a hands-on coding role. This is a technology leadership and strategy role. You will understand our business deeply, identify technology gaps, design the right solutions, manage the developers who build them, and ensure everything works together as a unified tech ecosystem. You will be the bridge between our business operations and our technology — translating what the business needs into systems that actually work. WHAT YOU WILL DO ERP Strategy & Management → Own end-to-end ERP strategy — from system selection to implementation to ongoing optimisation. → Map our business processes across manufacturing, inventory, procurement, sales, finance, and operations to the right ERP modules. → Lead ERPNext / Frappe implementation and customisation — this is our preferred ERP platform. → Manage and oversee development team or third-party ERP developers — review work, ensure quality, hold them to timelines. → Define ERP workflows for: Manufacturing & production, Inventory & procurement, Sales & customer management, Financial accounting, and BOM integration with the engineering team. Technology Architecture & Developer Management → Audit our current technology stack — identify gaps, redundancies, and inefficiencies — and design a scalable technology roadmap. → Oversee integrations between Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, Wayfair and our ERP system. → Ensure data flows correctly between design (SolidWorks), manufacturing (India factory), operations (ERPNext), and commerce (Shopify/Amazon). → Define clear technical requirements for developers, review code quality and architecture decisions, and manage delivery timelines. → Ensure developers are building scalable, maintainable systems — not quick fixes that create technical debt. Business Process & Technology Advisory → Understand how Lyfe Hardware operates — identify manual or error-prone processes and propose automation solutions. → Translate business language into technical requirements and technical outputs back into business language. → Advise founders on technology investment decisions — what to build, what to buy, what to wait on. → Define data strategy — what data to collect, how to store it, and how to use it for better decisions. WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU Must Have → 8–12 years of technology experience across software development, systems architecture, or technology leadership. → Proven ERP management experience — implementing from scratch, customising, or managing ongoing ERP operations. → Experience managing developers — led development teams, reviewed technical work, delivered projects on time. → Deep understanding of business processes — operations, inventory, procurement, manufacturing, and finance. → Startup or growth-stage company experience — you know how to build fast with limited resources. → Strong communication skills — explain complex technology to non-technical founders clearly and simply. → Comfortable with ambiguity — in a startup, priorities shift fast. You adapt without losing focus. ERPNext / Frappe — Strong Advantage → Experience with ERPNext or Frappe Framework is a significant differentiating factor for this role. → Ideal: implemented, customised, or managed ERPNext for a manufacturing or ecommerce company. → Minimum: working knowledge of ERPNext modules — Manufacturing, Inventory, Procurement, Sales, Accounts, BOM. Good to Have → Shopify tech ecosystem — APIs, integrations, custom apps. → Experience integrating ERP with ecommerce platforms (Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, Wayfair). → Python knowledge (Frappe is Python-based). D2C, manufacturing, or hardware company background. → Automation tools — Zapier, Make, n8n. Data analytics — dashboards, reporting, BI. → Familiarity with Google Workspace, Slack, Asana, Notion. WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE Milestone What Success Looks Like First 30 Days Full audit of technology stack, core business processes mapped, top 3 technology gaps identified, and a 90-day technology roadmap presented to founders. At 3 Months ERPNext implemented or significantly improved — key modules working correctly for manufacturing, inventory, procurement, and sales. Developers working to clear technical specification. At 6 Months Technology stack works as one connected ecosystem — design outputs flow into ERP, ERP connects to ecommerce platforms, and operations team has real-time visibility. Manual workarounds eliminated. WHAT THIS ROLE OFFERS → Direct CEO and COO partnership — your recommendations will be heard and acted on quickly. → Real impact — the systems you build will directly affect how efficiently we manufacture, sell, and scale. → Greenfield opportunity — we are early stage, which means you get to build the right way from the start. → Flexibility — fractional engagement means you can continue other work while partnering with us. → Growth path — as the company scales, this role has the potential to grow into a full-time CTO position. → Fully remote — work from anywhere. WHO THIS IS FOR This role is ideal for someone who: ✅ Has been a CTO, VP of Engineering, or Senior Technology Lead before. ✅ Loves working with startups and building from scratch. ✅ Gets excited about solving real operational problems with technology — not just writing beautiful code. ✅ Understands that in a startup, done is better than perfect — but still cares deeply about quality. ✅ Can hold developers accountable without micromanaging them. ✅ Speaks both business and technology fluently — bridges the gap between founders and engineers.