Founding CTO (Web2)

Hyphen Connect Limited; Abu Dhabi, Dubai; On-site; AED 300,000 - 500,000; Full time

Job summary

Hyphen Connect Limited in Abu Dhabi is looking for a Founding CTO to lead the development of a new consumer engagement and rewards platform. You will define the architecture and engineering standards while ensuring the platform's scalability and functionality.

The ideal candidate has over 8 years of experience in consumer-facing products and a proven track record of building platforms for large user bases. Strong leadership and mentoring skills are essential for managing the engineering team.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience building consumer-facing technology products.
• Proven experience delivering a 0-to-1 platform.
• Track record of shipping products at scale (100K+ users).

Responsibilities

• Define and build the core platform architecture.
• Establish system design principles.
• Make key build-vs-buy decisions.
• Architect and implement backend services.
• Oversee development of mobile and web applications.

Skills

Consumer-facing technology products

Architecture and technical strategy

Building and mentoring high-performing teams

Frontend and backend technologies

Blockchain or tokenised systems

Tools

React Native

Flutter

Solidity

Job description

We are supporting a venture-backed, early-stage technology company building a white-label consumer engagement and rewards platform for global brands. The platform enables large-scale fan and customer experiences (e.g. predictions, quests, digital rewards, ticketing and commerce) while incorporating tokenised settlement and rewards infrastructure.

This role represents a true greenfield build. The Founding CTO will define the overall system architecture, technical standards, and engineering culture from day one, while delivering a production-grade platform designed to scale to millions of users.

As Founding CTO, you will take end-to-end ownership of the technology organisation, from initial architecture and hands‑on development through to team build‑out and long‑term technical strategy.

You will work closely with founders and commercial stakeholders, translating product vision into scalable systems and ensuring the platform can support multiple partners, brands, and regions.

Responsibilities

• Define and build the core platform architecture supporting engagement mechanics, rewards, commerce, and analytics
• Establish system design principles covering scalability, security, and performance
• Make key build‑vs‑buy decisions and select vendors, tooling, and infrastructure partners
• Architect and implement backend services supporting real‑time event ingestion, points/wallet systems, identity, and compliance controls
• Design robust data pipelines, storage, and API layersOwn production readiness, including monitoring, alerting, SLOs, and incident response processes
• Consumer products
• Oversee development of mobile (iOS/Android) and web applications delivered under partner branding
• Ensure high-quality user experience across consumer touchpoints
• Lead design and integration of tokenised reward systems, including smart contracts and distribution logic
• Manage wallet integrations and fiat on/off‑ramps in collaboration with external providers
• Integrations
• Build and maintain APIs connecting to external data feeds, ticketing systems, commerce platforms, and sponsor tools
• Leadership & team
• Hire, mentor, and scale a high‑performing engineering team
• Establish engineering standards, documentation practices, and development workflows
• Act as a hands‑on technical leader while progressively transitioning to strategic oversight

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience building consumer‑facing technology products
• Proven experience delivering at least one 0-to-1 platform
• Track record of shipping and operating products at scale (100K+ users)Experience designing production‑grade systems with high reliability requirements
• Comfortable working across frontend, backend, and infrastructure layers
• Strong written and verbal communication skills (architecture docs, technical strategy, roadmap planning)

Strongly preferred

• Experience with loyalty, gaming, or marketplace‑style mechanics (e.g. rewards, auctions, prediction‑style systems)
• Familiarity with blockchain or tokenised systems (smart contracts, wallets, settlement flows)
• Background in security‑sensitive or compliance‑aware systems
• Experience building white‑label or multi‑tenant platforms

Technical environment (current / planned)

• Mobile: React Native or Flutter; native iOS (Swift) / Android (Kotlin) experience advantageous
• Web3 exposure: Solidity fundamentals, wallet integrations, token mechanics