Tech companies are hiring in Ottawa! If you’re looking for your next opportunity in tech, Work in Ottawa can help you build a thriving career in the fast-growing technology industry in Canada’s capital.

As an initiative of the city’s economic development agency, Invest Ottawa, Work in Ottawa helps tech firms fill open positions quickly so they can grow and scale faster

We are excited to partner with GSTS on their search for VP, Product & Technology. 

About GSTS
GSTS is a leading Maritime AI company specializing in advanced analytics, risk management, and operational optimization solutions for the global maritime industry. Our mission is to enable safer, smarter, and more sustainable maritime operations through the power of Artificial Intelligence and predictive analytics.

Backed by funding from leading global strategic and financial investors, GSTS has garnered international recognition for its proprietary technology and visionary maritime roadmap.

OCIANA is a dual-use digital maritime AI product supporting defence, security and supply chain customers globally. OCIANA provides risk and optimization solutions for multiple stakeholders across both sectors.

Overview

We're seeking a highly skilled and experienced VP of Product & Technology to lead the maturation of our team and product. This role demands a unique combination of technical depth, strategic leadership, and a customer-centric mindset. You will be responsible for translating business goals into a clear product roadmap, overseeing the R&D organization, and ensuring the successful delivery of innovative, high-quality, customer-focused solutions. This role sits at the intersection of product, engineering, customer success, and go-to-market functions. You will be reporting to the CEO.

You will lead Product Management, Engineering, and Project/Delivery functions as one integrated team to ensure that what we build (product strategy), how we build (technical execution), and how we ship (delivery excellence) are tightly aligned.

Position Scope and Responsibilities

• Define long-term product strategy and translate into roadmaps and feature pipelines.
• Conduct market analysis, competitive research, and customer interviews to guide product prioritization.
• Partner with Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Support to ensure the product meets market and customer needs.
• Communicate product direction clearly across the organization and to external stakeholders (e.g. R&D, sales, customers, investors, partners).
• Own the product lifecycle: ideation → requirements → delivery → post-launch optimization.
• Coordinate and manage with engineering leads; ensure clear definitions of done, sufficient testing, maintainability, performance, scalability.
• Set product and engineering priorities; arbitrate trade-offs (e.g. speed vs technical debt).
• Establish processes that improve collaboration between Product, Design, QA, and Engineering.
• Recruit, develop, and lead managers in product and engineering, ensuring shared goals and responsibilities.
• Budget planning for product and tech investments.
• Establish KPIs and operational processes to track delivery performance, technical debt, and innovation pipeline.

Strategic Leadership & Execution

• Translate product and commercialization goals into technical execution plans aligned with timelines and budgets.
• Collaborate with the senior leadership team to prioritize engineering resourcing, timelines, and capital investments.
• Evaluate and de-risk technical trade-offs and drive iterative development cycles using learnings from lab, field, and customer deployments.
• Champion a customer-centric culture across teams.

Team Building & Culture

• Lead, grow, and mentor a high-performing team.
• Build a strong technical culture rooted in innovation, engineering rigor, process, accountability, and impact.
• Promote diversity of thought, inclusive collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's Degree in Computer Science, Software, or Systems Engineering.
• Proven experience defining and executing a product strategy that resulted in strong business outcomes.
• 15+ years of experience in software product development and commercialization, with 7+ years in senior engineering or product leadership.
• Demonstrated excellence in customer engagement and expectations management. Proven ability to balance long-term roadmap vision with near-term delivery needs, and preserving customer trust through ambiguity or shifting requirements.
• Proven track record delivering complex software. Dual use product experience and/or products in maritime, defence, supply chain or logistics sectors are a plus.
• Demonstrated understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).technologies, with experience integrating AI-powered features into SaaS products or overseeing data science teams.
• Background in both product management and software delivery (e.g. previous Director / VP roles where you led engineering or worked extremely closely with it).
• Deep experience in product design, UX, technical planning.
• Strong organizational, planning, prioritization skills.
• Experience with modern software engineering practices (CI/CD, code reviews, agile, DevOps).
• Experience scaling organizations during rapid growth phases (e.g., Series A to Series C).

Work in Ottawa utilizes a secure, closed AI environment for the initial screening of resumes, ensuring your data remains safe while helping us efficiently identify top candidates. We encourage all applicants to apply, even if you do not meet every requirement if you possess relevant skills, enthusiasm and eagerness to grow, we want to hear from you! To enhance your visibility, consider including relevant keywords in your resume.

If you require any accommodation during the hiring process, please reach out to the GSTS team.