Chief Technology Officer

Role Overview

We are seeking an exceptional CTO with extensive experience in computer science, cybersecurity, cryptography, and blockchain/web3 to join our world-class team. You will lead the engineering team, set the technology strategy, and drive the development of our products to new heights. You will need to manage and collaborate with diverse teams spanning engineering, research, security and infrastructure, requiring both a solid technical background and excellent management skills.

We are looking for a highly skilled engineering leader with proven ability to master the full SDLC, while remaining focused on high- level product vision and strategy, cross-team coordination, methodological guidance, workspace optimization and delivery process improvements.

As CTO, you will be responsible for driving the company’s tech roadmap and spearheading the development of products. You will work closely with the CEO, CPO, and other senior executives to define and execute on the product vision and strategy. The ideal candidate has a keen eye for gaps in client product offerings and the innovative mindset to fill them. We expect you to act as a visionary and an avid evangelist of our technology.

Additionally, it is important to understand that our CTO is the technical leader of a cybersecurity company and is expected to contribute proactively to the development and implementation of comprehensive, product- wide information security strategies. We expect you to ensure that our technical architecture and code design adhere to security best-practices and regulatory requirements, and to proactively mitigate any potential attack vectors.

Responsibilities

Your primary goal will be to lead the engineering team towards building a delightful product that works well, ensure technical security, and align technology with overall business objectives.

Example of a primary metric would be Time to Market for New Products.

Your day-to-day tasks will involve:

• Share the big picture with your team, define priorities within the technical roadmap, and be accountable for the deadlines and the quality of the code
• Act as a powerhouse of ideas on all product and engineering issues.
• Own and drive the software lifecycle from design to launch to ongoing availability
• Ensure end-to-end feature implementation using Scrum and define the KPIs to follow
• Pay attention to developer experience quality and obsess over reducing maintenance friction, implementation time, error management time, and other aspects that deteriorate the programmability/buildability of the product
• Determine and manage the technology budget, ensuring that we are efficiently utilizing our resources to achieve our business objectives
• Work with the executive board and engineering team to gain extensive, in-depth insights into the product and its risk vectors
• Participate in the risk committee as a voting member and act as the main reference for sensitive, high-risk technical decisions
• Review security models, look out for weaknesses, report possible threats or software issues, and find solutions to counter or mitigate them
• Educate and foster a security-first culture across the engineering team to enforce a zero weak link policy and enable everyone to be proactive
• Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement across the engineering team and the company
• Author, review, and update internal and external documentation and code
• Facilitate cross-team communication and know-how exchange between team members
• Participate in client calls to provide technical explanations and show consistency
• Interview and onboard new hires, coach and manage a growing team
• Attend weekly meetings to discuss strategy with the CEO and other team leaders
• Keep abreast of the latest developments in crypto and research emerging technologies to nurture the company’s strategic orientations and propose change

Requirements

• At least 10 years of experience in software engineering, with a minimum of 3 years as a CTO or similar leadership role in a fast-paced and dynamic startup environment
• Proven work experience in blockchain and crypto industries
• Engineering expertise and ability to challenge the reasoning of other engineers
• Solid technical background with understanding of information security and cryptography
• Excellent technical architecture knowledge and proven systems design expertise
• In-depth knowledge of agile methodologies, modern software development processes, and lean project management
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with the ability to think out of the box
• Thorough understanding of the latest information security principles and techniques
• Extensive experience with GCP, AWS, Azure and/or other cloud environments
• Proven experience in testing secure, fault-tolerant, and resilient systems
• Experience in building products in compliance to industry-wide security frameworks such as NIST, ISO, SOC, C4, and others
• Past track record of recruiting and developing a high performing engineering team, namely in fast-scaling environments (e.g., from 20 to 100-200 engineers)
• Experienced working with remote teams across several time zones and knows well how to create great relationships and a strong work culture regardless of location
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams as diverse as cryptography, marketing and legal teams
• Founding-spirited technologist with grit and guts to tackle complex problems
• Ability to make reasonable, efficient decisions even in stressful, ambiguous situations
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Humble, respectful, and very professional to others

Bonus points:

• Extensive coding skills, ideally in Typescript and/or Rust
• Experience with public key cryptography and key management
• Hands-on experience and willingness to contribute to open source projects
• Proven track record working on developer tools or cybersecurity software
• Extensive knowledge about crypto wallets and associated use cases
• Has already created or contributed to a decentralized app or protocol

Culture & Perks

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 401k matching or similar
• Flexible PTO
• Sponsored transportation
• Gym
• Food
• Apple devices
• Home office equipment
• Team retreats, and more

About Us

Dfns is a cybersecurity company providing wallet infrastructure for Web3.

Founded in 2020 in Paris, Dfns is a SOC-certified company incubated by Techstars and Station F. Our company is fully remote with offices in Paris, New York, London, Dubai, and other cities.

Think of Dfns as a developer tool merging crypto wallets with SaaS, cloud and cryptography. At core, Dfns is an API-first key management service designed to provide application developers with plug-and-play access to digital assets on blockchains. We designed our product with developer experience in mind to maximize programmability and minimize high-touch implementations.

Our mission is to become one of the favorite building blocks in web3 and provide enablement technology for builders devoted to making the future of finance safe and delightful.