Chief Product & Technology Officer
About ZAP Solutions
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. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, ZAP was acquired by Banyan Software and is entering a new phase focused on platform modernization, AI-enabled workflows, and expansion of its customer base.
The Opportunity
ZAP is at an inflection point. The company has built a durable market position on the strength of deep client relationships and customization, but that model now needs to evolve into a modern, scalable SaaS platform capable of doubling the customer base without doubling the codebase. The engineering organization has operated without a formal leadership layer for years, and there is no formal product management function. The incoming 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 your own hands on the work. The platform has to be reliable, the data has to be an asset, and the opportunity to create competitive distance through AI is real.
What You Will Own
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, who holds the deep customer relationships today, to build a product operating model that plays to 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 the platform is scalable, secure, and built for the next phase of growth.
Drive consolidation of the multi-codebase legacy footprint toward a modern, maintainable SaaS architecture that preserves ZAP's reputation for client responsiveness while lifting the cost of customization.
Design a data architecture that serves analytics, BI, and AI as a unified estate, positioning ZAP for AI capabilities generic models cannot replicate on applicant and enrollment data.
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 that improves throughput.
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 this organization has had.
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. ZAP's developers have been in seat for years, and the transformation has to bring them along.
Invest in reskilling the team for AI-native ways of working.
Address underperformance directly and quickly, without waiting for HR.
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.
What We Are Looking For
The Future Forward CPTO is a proven SaaS leader who unifies product vision and technology execution under a single accountable seat, and is comfortable leading through modernization and platform inflection. This is not a traditional CTO or CPO role. It demands someone who holds deep product thinking and technical delivery in equal measure, leads with an AI-first methodology, and is energized by transformation rather than threatened by it. They are close enough to the product and code to stay personally connected, and mature enough to modernize a legacy platform without disrupting the customers and long-tenured teams who depend on it. They choose this environment because it offers something bigger organizations cannot: the ability to set product direction, own the technical foundation, shape culture, and drive transformation with their own hands on the work.
Must-Haves
Led a technology and product transformation in tandem, with specific delivery and adoption outcomes, and brought the team through the change rather than around it.
Shipped AI-embedded product capabilities with measurable outcomes, or led sustained AI experimentation with clear conviction about where it creates durable value. Personal, daily agentic AI use, not talking about it at a distance.
Owned product direction as the synthesis of customer signals, usage data, and market insights, and can point to a roadmap they 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, not through HR.
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.
Bonus Points
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 ZAP Solutions
Category dominance backed by hard numbers. 64 percent 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 percent customer satisfaction. 99 percent AWS uptime. Starting position is compounding a proven business, not rescuing a broken one.
A full product portfolio to unify and extend. The CPTO owns product direction and technical foundation across ZAP's entire portfolio, not a single-feature product.
A permanent home, not a portfolio play. Banyan buys, holds, and grows software companies for life. We never resell. You can invest in architecture, teams, and platforms without a three-to-five-year exit clock cutting your work short.
A peer network. A community of Banyan portfolio company product and technology leaders navigating the same challenges: modernization, AI adoption, scaling teams, and building on acquired codebases.
The expected base salary for this position is: USD $185,000 – $200,000+ excluding annual bonus and equity (when applicable). Salary is based on a number of factors including market conditions, location and may vary depending on job-related skills and experience.
This position is for an existing vacancy.