Job Description: Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Location: US (Remote)

Type: Full-time (Executive)

Reports to: CEO (and works closely with CISO/Compliance)

Role Summary

We are seeking a hands-on CTO to lead technology strategy and execution for a production-grade Liquidity Trading ATS platform with crypto trading capabilities. The CTO will own platform architecture, engineering execution, reliability, and scaling the organization to deliver in a regulated environment. This role requires deep experience building and operating real-money trading systems and leading teams through rapid growth while maintaining rigorous controls and uptime.

Key Responsibilities

Technology & Architecture

Define and own the end-to-end technology strategy and target architecture for an ATS + crypto trading platform.
Drive an event-driven microservices architecture (Node.js primary; selective Python/Go services) with clear service boundaries, reliability, and observability.
Establish standards for low-latency real-time systems: market data ingestion, order lifecycle, risk checks, trade reporting, and post-trade workflows.

Engineering Leadership

Build and lead high-performing engineering teams (frontend, backend, platform/SRE, QA).
Set delivery discipline: roadmap execution, design reviews, coding standards, release governance, incident management.
Implement a strong vendor strategy (if applicable): staff augmentation vs outsourcing, clear RACI, performance metrics, and accountability.

Security, Compliance & Risk

Collaborate with Security/Compliance to embed secure SDLC, auditability, and control evidence into engineering workflows.
Ensure strong identity/access controls, secrets management, encryption, logging, data retention, and incident response readiness.
Ensure the platform supports regulatory and operational requirements (Broker-dealer/TA/ATS expectations, surveillance hooks, audit trails).

Operational Excellence

Own production health: SLIs/SLOs, performance/throughput targets, capacity planning, DR/BCP readiness, on-call and postmortems.
Drive scalability, cost control, and technical debt reduction without slowing delivery.

Product Partnership

Collaborate with Product to shape platform capabilities, UX expectations for trading workflows, and roadmap prioritization.
Translate business needs into measurable engineering outcomes.

Required Qualifications

12+ years engineering experience with 5+ years leading engineering organizations (VP Eng / CTO / Head of Engineering).
Direct experience building and operating trading platforms (brokerage, exchange, ATS, market making, or crypto trading venues) in production.
Strong understanding of trading concepts: order types, routing/matching/integration, fills/cancels, positions, risk controls, fees, settlement/post-trade.
Experience with microservices, event-driven systems, and real-time streaming (WebSockets, Kafka/NATS/etc.).
Strong understanding of cloud-native architecture, observability, and reliability engineering.
Proven ability to lead in regulated environments and build audit-ready systems (FINRA/SEC/CFTC-aligned controls, SOC2/ISO processes).

Strongly Preferred

Experience at/with firms like TD Ameritrade, Robinhood, Coinbase, or comparable broker-dealers/exchanges/ATS providers.
Knowledge of broker-dealer (BD) and transfer agent (TA) functions and how these intersect with trading, corporate actions, and customer servicing.
Experience integrating custody/wallet providers, KYC/KYB, payment rails, and compliance surveillance tooling.

Leadership Profile

Hands-on, decisive, and accountable; can go deep technically and also scale teams and process.
Sets a high bar for quality, security, and reliability while moving fast.
Communicates clearly with executives, engineers, auditors, and external partners.

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