Head of Tech (Engineering & AI)

Portcast is a venture-backed, Singapore-based logistics technology startup helping freight forwarders turn data into better decisions and measurable business impact.

Portcast uses AI to surface shipment exceptions, cost risks, and the right actions, helping teams focus on the shipments that need their attention, keep freight costs under control, and make procurement decisions with confidence. Our vision is to be the AI data and intelligence layer that powers exception management and margin improvement on every shipment.

Founded in 2018 and backed by leading technology investors, we are building for an industry at a critical inflection point of digital transformation. Our team of software engineers, data scientists, and logistics experts is on a mission to build the technology that helps freight forwarders protect margin, improve operational efficiency, and differentiate their offering.

We're looking for our Head of Tech (Engineering, AI, Data) to lead, own, and shape our technical direction. This role will own and lead our 15-person Tech team, which is made up of 3 functions: Engineering, ML/DS, and DA. You'll be responsible for how we build, how we use data and AI, and how our systems scale as the company grows.

We're looking for a strategic technical leader who thinks from first principles, makes strong decisions, and stays close to the technology. Someone who has shipped enterprise-grade software: products with real SLAs, multi-tenant boundaries, security reviews, and the procurement-and-pilots dance that comes with Fortune-500-class customers. Someone with a strong, defensible point of view on where AI belongs in production vs. where it's still a science project. And critically: someone who came from the code, still writes it when it matters, and would rather review an RFC than sit through another roadmap slide.

You'll work closely with the CEO, Product, Sales, and CS teams to translate real customer problems into systems, tools, and AI capabilities that drive outcomes, value to our customers and company revenue, not just features. This is not a pure management role. It requires strong technical judgment, comfort operating across engineering and data, and the ability to lead through both direction and execution. You'll set the technical bar, strengthen how teams work together, and ensure engineering, ML, and analytics move as one cohesive capability supporting the business.

Curiosity: We read the code before we trust it. We dig into why a system behaves the way it does, not just how to make the error go away.

Ownership: We act like founders. We don't wait for a ticket to fix what's broken, and we stay on a problem until it's actually solved in production.

Raising the bar: We do not settle for code that only works locally or solves the immediate request. We aim for backend systems that are reliable, scalable, maintainable, and easy for the team to reason about.

Effectiveness: We focus on engineering work that creates real product and customer impact. We prioritize the right problems, make practical trade-offs, and ship solutions that improve outcomes, not just output.