CTO

Hands-on CTO / Principal Engineer (Java stack)

130k-160k + Equity

Flexible working policy

Albany Growth have partnered with a well-funded, mission-driven fintech startup is redefining how employees access and manage their finances. We're hiring for a hands-on technical leader (Principal Engineer / CTO) , ideally proficient in JVM languages , to shape the next generation of its mobile and web platforms. This role combines strategic architectural ownership with deep technical involvement , giving you the chance to influence product direction while still writing code, setting standards, and solving complex technical challenges that power a high-growth consumer fintech product.

This role could suit a Principal Engineer with leadership qualities, a Head of Engineering looking to step up, or existing start-up CTO's who are still close to the code.

What you will be doing:

• Define and evolve a cross-platform architecture for mobile and web that is scalable, resilient and maintainable.
• Partner closely with Product, Design and commercial teams to turn ideas into production features from inception through release and iteration.
• Stay hands-on: write prototypes and reference implementations, perform code reviews, and contribute code to critical systems when required.
• Lead architecture reviews, set engineering standards, and drive best practices in testing, CI/CD and observability.
• Mentor senior engineers and guide multiple squads working across mobile (iOS/React Native) and web (React/TypeScript).
• Make tooling, framework and platform decisions (cloud, infra, frameworks) that balance speed, cost and long-term scalability.
• Ensure appropriate attention to data privacy, security and regulatory requirements for a payments/embedded-finance environment.

Must-have skills & experience

• Proven experience as a hands-on technical leader (Principal Engineer, Head of Engineering, or CTO) in a product company or high-growth startup.
• Strong full-stack background with deep experience in Java / JVM (Spring Boot) and a demonstrable track record of shipping backend systems at scale.
• Significant experience building and scaling mobile and web user experiences (React, React Native, TypeScript, Swift or equivalent).
• Experience designing systems that serve large user bases (high concurrency, high throughput, resilient APIs).
• Strong cloud & platform experience (AWS or equivalent), CI/CD, and observability practices.
• Excellent communicator able to translate technical trade-offs to product and non-technical stakeholders and win alignment.
• Comfortable operating across multiple teams and time zones; pragmatic, delivery-focused and customer-obsessed.

Why youll love it

• High impact: lead architecture for user-facing products with real business and social impact.
• Hands-on executive role: influence company strategy while continuing to code and ship.
• Remote-friendly, globally distributed teams with pockets of close collaboration: hybrid working and occasional travel supported.
• Equity at an early stage meaningful ownership and influence on direction and outcomes.

This is a rare opportunity to combine strategic influence at the executive level with day-to-day engineering craftsmanship, owning end-to-end delivery of user-facing systems used by large numbers of customers.