Chief Technology Officer

Job Descritpion

About Us

We are Near.U, We strive to develop our solutions by observing the best practices of our craft this means writing testable, performant, easy to maintain and constantly improving code, while enabling our company to iterate our product fast and stay ahead. We are looking for a Chief Technology Officer for a private & Corporate Banking in Switzerland.

About the Position

A prominent Swiss bank is seeking a Chief Technology Officer to lead its technology function through a pivotal phase of digital transformation. The institution serves both private and corporate banking clients and is committed to building a modern, secure, and customer-centric technology platform.

The CTO will hold full accountability for technology strategy, architecture, and execution across the bank. This is a board-level facing role requiring a rare combination of strategic vision, regulatory awareness, and deep hands-on credibility in banking technology.

A critical requirement of this role is extensive experience building and managing nearshore IT teams. The bank relies on a hybrid operating model with significant nearshore engineering capacity, and the CTO must be capable of defining, scaling, and governing these partnerships effectively to deliver at pace without compromising quality or compliance.

Key Responsibilities

Technology Strategy & Governance

• Define and own the long-term technology roadmap, aligning it with the bank's business strategy, regulatory obligations, and digital ambitions.

• Act as the primary technology voice at executive and board level, translating complex technical decisions into clear business impact.

• Establish enterprise architecture principles, security standards, and technology governance frameworks appropriate for a regulated Swiss financial institution.

• Oversee compliance with FINMA regulations and Swiss data residency requirements across all technology operations.

Nearshore & Distributed Team Leadership

• Design, build, and govern nearshore IT delivery models, with full accountability for vendor selection, onboarding, performance management, and cultural alignment.

• Lead a distributed engineering organisation of 150–300+ engineers across Switzerland and nearshore locations, ensuring delivery quality and operational resilience.

• Establish clear standards, tooling, and practices that enable nearshore teams to operate as true extensions of the internal engineering function.

• Drive continuous improvement in nearshore collaboration models, including agile ceremonies, knowledge transfer, and escalation frameworks.

Engineering Excellence & Delivery

• Oversee end-to-end delivery of core banking systems, digital channels (web and mobile), and data infrastructure.

• Champion engineering best practices including automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, secure coding standards, and platform reliability.

• Lead the modernisation of legacy core banking infrastructure towards cloud-native, API-first architectures.

• Drive adoption of AI and data-driven capabilities including fraud detection, risk modelling, client personalisation, and operational automation.

People & Organisational Leadership

• Build and develop a high-performing technology leadership layer, creating clear career paths and succession plans.

• Foster an engineering culture rooted in accountability, craftsmanship, and continuous learning.

• Act as a visible internal and external ambassador for technology excellence within the Swiss banking community.

What You Bring

Essential Experience

• 10+ years in senior technology leadership, including CTO, VP Engineering, or equivalent roles within financial services.

• Proven track record building and scaling nearshore IT teams — this is a non-negotiable requirement. Candidates without demonstrable nearshore leadership experience will not be considered.

• Deep expertise in core banking technology stacks, digital banking platforms, and regulated financial services infrastructure.

• Strong understanding of Swiss and European regulatory environments (FINMA, GDPR, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001).

• Experience leading distributed engineering organisations of 150+ engineers across multiple countries.

Technical Credibility

• Solid grounding in modern architecture patterns: microservices, event-driven systems, cloud-native (AWS, Azure, or GCP), and API-first design.

• Familiarity with core banking modernisation approaches, including mainframe migration, composable banking, and open finance/Open Banking APIs.

• Hands-on background in at least one major technology domain (e.g., platform engineering, security, data engineering, or digital channels).

• Exposure to AI/ML applications in banking contexts: credit risk, fraud, AML, customer analytics, or process automation.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Exceptional communicator with the ability to influence at board, executive, and engineering levels equally.

• Strong people leadership with a track record of developing senior engineering talent and building inclusive, high-performing teams.

• Comfortable navigating complex stakeholder environments, including regulators, auditors, external partners, and internal business units.

• High levels of integrity and sound judgement — essential qualities for a technology leader in a regulated Swiss institution.

• Fluent in English; German or French is a strong advantage.

Location & Travel

This role is hybrid in Switzerland, with a preference for Zurich or Geneva. Hybrid arrangements may be considered for exceptional candidates based elsewhere in the EU, subject to regular in-country presence.

Regular travel to nearshore delivery locations is expected, typically once per quarter per site.

What We Offer

• Executive compensation package benchmarked to Swiss financial services market standards.

• A board-level platform with genuine influence over the technology direction of a significant Swiss institution.

• The opportunity to lead a meaningful technology transformation in one of the world's most prestigious banking environments.

• A complex, high-stakes engineering environment with real architectural, regulatory, and organisational challenges.

• Close partnership with Near.U's executive search and technology advisory teams throughout the process.

Moongy Group is an Equal Opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered without regard for race, colour, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion.