We are partnering with a venture-backed, early-stage technology company building a programmable loyalty and rewards operating system for global consumer brands. The platform enables brands to launch white-label fan engagement and monetisation experiences—including predictions, quests, digital drops, auctions, and ticketing—without gambling mechanics.

At its core, the platform combines consumer-grade applications with a tokenised exchange and settlement layer, enabling branded tokens to be issued, traded, and distributed at scale. Initial verticals are in global sports and entertainment, with expansion planned into additional IP-driven markets.

The company is now seeking a Founding CTO to lead the architecture and build-out of its protocol, exchange infrastructure, and engineering organisation from day one.

As Founding CTO, you will be responsible for designing, building, and scaling the full technical stack, with a particular focus on the exchange and protocol layer. You will oversee smart contract development, liquidity and market mechanics, wallet infrastructure, and the integration between on-chain systems and high-scale consumer products.

This is a hands-on leadership role suited to a senior Web3 technologist who has shipped production protocols and wants full ownership of technical strategy in a greenfield environment.

Responsibilities

• Exchange & protocol architecture
• Design and deploy a hybrid AMM / orderbook-based exchange for branded tokens
• Build liquidity pools, routing logic, and market-making infrastructure
• Define token economics, liquidity incentives, and trading mechanics
• Smart contracts
• Develop, test, and deploy core protocol contracts, including:
• Token standards
• Liquidity pools and staking
• Rewards distribution and governance
• Lead audit processes and ensure a strong on-chain security posture
• Wallet & settlement infrastructure
• Implement abstracted wallet solutions (e.g. smart accounts, MPC)
• Integrate fiat on/off-ramps and external custody providers where required
• Platform integration
• Oversee architecture connecting the protocol layer to:
• Engagement mechanics (predictions, quests, missions)
• Rewards and commerce systems (drops, auctions, ticketing, merchandise)
• Analytics and reporting dashboards
• Consumer products
• Guide development of mobile (iOS/Android) and web applications delivered under partner branding
• Leadership & strategy
• Hire, lead, and scale the engineering team across protocol, backend, and product
• Set engineering standards, development workflows, and technical roadmap
• Make strategic build-vs-buy decisions and select vendors and tooling

Qualifications

• 5+ years building blockchain or crypto infrastructure
• Proven experience shipping at least one protocol or exchange to mainnet
• Deep understanding of DeFi mechanics (AMMs, liquidity mining, tokenomics)
• Strong production smart contract experience with a clean audit track record
• Experience working with L2s, rollups, or app-chains
• Familiarity with consumer-facing systems and real-time platforms
• Comfortable operating in early-stage, resource-constrained environments
• Able to balance protocol purity with product and user experience needs
• Strong communicator across technical and non-technical stakeholders

Technical environment

• Smart contracts: Solidity (advanced), Foundry / Hardhat, formal verification fundamentals
• Languages: TypeScript/JavaScript, Rust or Go, Python
• Infrastructure: RPC operations, indexers/subgraphs, GCP, Docker/Kubernetes
• Security: Audit coordination, attack vector mitigation (reentrancy, flash loans, oracle risk), monitoring and incident response
• Product stack exposure: React Native or Flutter, PostgreSQL, Redis, event streaming (useful for protocol-to-product integration)

We are supporting a venture-backed, early-stage technology company building a white-label consumer engagement and rewards platform for global brands. The platform enables large-scale fan and customer experiences (e.g. predictions, quests, digital rewards, ticketing and commerce) while incorporating tokenised settlement and rewards infrastructure.

This role represents a true greenfield build. The Founding CTO will define the overall system architecture, technical standards, and engineering culture from day one, while delivering a production-grade platform designed to scale to millions of users.

As Founding CTO, you will take end-to-end ownership of the technology organisation, from initial architecture and hands-on development through to team build-out and long-term technical strategy.

You will work closely with founders and commercial stakeholders, translating product vision into scalable systems and ensuring the platform can support multiple partners, brands, and regions.

Responsibilities

• Platform & architecture
• Define and build the core platform architecture supporting engagement mechanics, rewards, commerce, and analytics
• Establish system design principles covering scalability, security, and performance
• Make key build-vs-buy decisions and select vendors, tooling, and infrastructure partners
• Backend & infrastructure
• Architect and implement backend services supporting real-time event ingestion, points/wallet systems, identity, and compliance controls
• Design robust data pipelines, storage, and API layers
• Own production readiness, including monitoring, alerting, SLOs, and incident response processes
• Consumer products
• Oversee development of mobile (iOS/Android) and web applications delivered under partner branding
• Ensure high-quality user experience across consumer touchpoints
• Token & rewards infrastructure
• Lead design and integration of tokenised reward systems, including smart contracts and distribution logic
• Manage wallet integrations and fiat on/off-ramps in collaboration with external providers
• Integrations
• Build and maintain APIs connecting to external data feeds, ticketing systems, commerce platforms, and sponsor tools
• Leadership & team
• Hire, mentor, and scale a high-performing engineering team
• Establish engineering standards, documentation practices, and development workflows
• Act as a hands-on technical leader while progressively transitioning to strategic oversight

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience building consumer-facing technology products
• Proven experience delivering at least one 0-to-1 platform
• Track record of shipping and operating products at scale (100K+ users)
• Strong backend engineering background (distributed systems, real-time data, API design)
• Experience designing production-grade systems with high reliability requirements
• Comfortable working across frontend, backend, and infrastructure layers
• Strong written and verbal communication skills (architecture docs, technical strategy, roadmap planning)

Strongly preferred

• Experience with loyalty, gaming, or marketplace-style mechanics (e.g. rewards, auctions, prediction-style systems)
• Familiarity with blockchain or tokenised systems (smart contracts, wallets, settlement flows)
• Background in security-sensitive or compliance-aware systems
• Experience building white-label or multi-tenant platforms

Technical environment (current / planned)

• Languages: TypeScript/JavaScript, Node.js, Python; Go or Rust exposure is a plus
• Mobile: React Native or Flutter; native iOS (Swift) / Android (Kotlin) experience advantageous
• Infrastructure: Cloud-native (GCP), Docker/Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines
• Data: PostgreSQL, Redis, event streaming (Kafka or equivalent)
• Web3 exposure: Solidity fundamentals, wallet integrations, token mechanics