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)