CTO - DeFi Trading Platform

We are partnering with a fintech venture building a Web3 trading platform focused on on-chain markets and DeFi. This is a senior leadership role with full ownership of the technical architecture, execution, and engineering direction of a DeFi trading product.

Our client is looking for a hands-on technical leader with experience building trading-grade systems in crypto or financial markets, who is comfortable operating in dynamic and ambiguous environments.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end technical architecture for a Web3/DeFi trading platform.
• Design and build trading systems that operate reliably under real market conditions.
• Lead the development of systems handling on-chain execution, settlement, and integrations with decentralized protocols.
• Ensure platform reliability, security, and observability, assuming failure as a default condition.
• Work closely with product stakeholders to translate user intent into accurate and verifiable outcomes.
• Act as a hands-on architect, contributing directly to critical technical decisions and implementation.
• Build and scale an engineering team as the platform matures.

Requirements

• Strong experience building crypto, trading, or financial market systems.
• Solid understanding of trading mechanics, including margin, leverage, liquidation, and risk.
• Exposure to DeFi concepts, such as DEXs, AMMs, liquidity routing, and on-chain execution.
• Familiarity with self-custodial wallets and non-custodial user flows.
• Strong system design skills with a focus on reliability, security, and scalability.
• Comfortable working with external or immutable systems (e.g. protocols, blockchains).

Nice to Have

• Experience with on-chain trading platforms or high-performance DeFi systems.
• Background bridging CeFi and DeFi products.
• Prior leadership in early-stage or 0-1 environments.