Chief Product & Technology Officer

About the Role

ZAP Solutions is the market leader in admissions and enrollment management software for medical, health professions, graduate, and undergraduate programs. Our flagship AMP platform, along with our CRM, SAMS, and Schedule Today modules, is trusted by more than 175 higher education programs across the US, Canada, and Australia to run applicant recruitment, review, interview scheduling, and matriculation. Acquired by Banyan Software, ZAP is entering a new phase focused on platform modernization, AI-enabled workflows, and expansion of its customer base.

ZAP is at an inflection point. The company has built a durable market position on deep client relationships and customization but now needs to evolve into a modern, scalable SaaS platform capable of doubling the customer base without doubling the codebase. The incoming Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) will unify product direction and technology execution under a single accountable seat, bring structure and product management maturity to a team of experienced developers, and establish an AI-first operating rhythm.

You will join ZAP Solutions directly as a core member of the leadership team, reporting to the CEO. You will set product direction, own the technical foundation, shape culture, and drive transformation with hands-on involvement.

Responsibilities

Product Direction and Discipline

• Own product direction as the synthesis of customer signals, usage data, and market insights, moving the roadmap from customer-reactive to market-facing.
• Run product discovery personally: focus groups, customer advisory councils, spec creation, and validation, particularly during year one while a product function is being built.
• Establish formal prioritization, roadmap, and release planning practices, communicated internally and to customers.
• Partner closely with the VP of Client Success to build a product operating model that leverages both strengths.
• Lend the product voice to enterprise sales cycles and Customer Success partnership.

Technology and Architecture

• Define and execute the technical vision for the AMP platform and companion products (CRM, SAMS, Schedule Today), ensuring scalability, security, and growth readiness.
• Drive consolidation of the multi-codebase legacy footprint toward a modern, maintainable SaaS architecture while preserving ZAP's reputation for client responsiveness.
• Design a data architecture that serves analytics, BI, and AI as a unified estate, positioning ZAP for AI capabilities generic models cannot replicate.
• Lead adoption of AI-assisted development practices across the engineering team, moving from ad hoc use of tools like Claude Code and Cursor to a systematic capability.
• Own security, compliance, and data privacy practices appropriate for a higher education SaaS environment, including FERPA, PCI-DSS, and WCAG/Section 508 accessibility standards.
• Manage technical debt pragmatically, balancing remediation with forward momentum on the roadmap.

Leadership and Culture

• Build and lead a high-performing engineering team of 10 to 15, identifying and developing internal team leads, and creating the first formal management layer for this organization.
• Establish engineering and product-ops practices that scale without bureaucracy, moving the team from reactive work assignment to a proactive roadmap.
• Calibrate change to team tenure and mission-criticality, ensuring the transformation brings long-tenured developers along.
• Invest in reskilling the team for AI-native ways of working.
• Address underperformance directly and quickly.

Executive Partnership

• Serve as the CEO's primary product and technology partner on business direction, market positioning, and investment decisions.
• Identify where AI and platform capabilities can reshape market position and create durable competitive advantage.
• Represent the product and technology vision with conviction in executive, customer, and board conversations.
• Push back constructively on decisions that trade short-term velocity for long-term product or platform health.

Requirements

• Led a technology and product transformation in tandem, with specific delivery and adoption outcomes, and brought the team through the change.
• Shipped AI-embedded product capabilities with measurable outcomes, or led sustained AI experimentation with clear conviction about its value. Personal, daily agentic AI use.
• Owned product direction as the synthesis of customer signals, usage data, and market insights, and can point to a roadmap moved from customer-reactive to market-facing.
• Owned a SaaS platform's security posture and compliance requirements (SOC 2, industry-specific standards) personally, not through a delegated security team.
• Designed or redesigned a data architecture that serves analytics, BI, and AI as a unified asset.
• Built and scaled an engineering team, including hiring, developing engineers into leaders, and managing performance directly. Addressed underperformance directly.
• Made architecture and product investment decisions with direct commercial rationale tied to retention, revenue, or competitive moat, and can make an investment case a CFO would accept.
• Ran product discovery personally: customer conversations, spec creation, prioritization frameworks. Comfortable holding the product credibility of the company in enterprise sales cycles.

Nice to Have

• Experience in EdTech, higher education technology, admissions or enrollment management, CRM ecosystems, or comparable vertical SaaS with heavy customization patterns.
• Familiarity with centralized application services (AMCAS, CASPA, PharmCAS) or SIS/CRM integrations common in higher education.
• Background operating in an AWS-primary infrastructure environment with regulated data (FERPA or comparable).
• Track record consolidating a multi-codebase or heavily forked platform into a maintainable SaaS product without breaking client trust.

Why Join ZAP Solutions

• Category dominance: 64% of US medical schools run their admissions on AMP. Over 6 million applications processed through the platform. 175+ higher education programs across the US, Canada, and Australia. 95% customer satisfaction. 99% AWS uptime.
• Full product portfolio: The CPTO owns product direction and technical foundation across ZAP's entire portfolio, not a single-feature product.
• Permanent home: Banyan buys, holds, and grows software companies for life. No resale or exit clock cutting your work short.
• Peer network: A community of Banyan portfolio company product and technology leaders navigating modernization, AI adoption, scaling teams, and building on acquired codebases.

Pay

The expected base salary for this position is USD $185,000 – $200,000+, excluding annual bonus and equity (when applicable). Salary is based on market conditions, location, and job-related skills and experience.