Lead Engineer / CTO

Contech Systems Inc.; Remote; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A growth-stage technology company in the UK seeks a Lead Engineer / CTO to own technical vision and execution for a high-availability platform. The role combines strategic influence with hands-on leadership in engineering, ensuring compliance and security. The successful candidate will have strong backend experience, familiarity with regulated environments, and excellent communication skills. This is a fully remote role with occasional in-person collaboration. Competitive compensation and equity participation are included.

Benefits

Competitive compensation

Equity participation

Executive-level technical ownership

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Experience in a senior technical leadership role like Lead Engineer or CTO.
• Proven experience in regulated environments.

Responsibilities

• Own system architecture across services, data stores, and infrastructure.
• Design scalable systems supporting real-time data processing.
• Lead mentorship and technical decision-making.

Skills

Backend engineering

Strong technical judgment

Excellent communication

Tools

Rust

Terraform

AWS

Job description

Lead Engineer / CTO

Employment Type: Direct Hire
Location: Fully Remote (hybrid/in-person collaboration as needed)
Compensation: Highly competitive base salary + equity participation

About the Opportunity

Our client is a well-funded, growth-stage technology company building a high-availability, real-time transactional platform operating in a highly regulated environment. The organization is engineering-first, with all core systems developed in-house, and is entering a critical scale and compliance phase.

We are conducting a confidential search for a Lead Engineer / CTO to own the technical vision and execution of the platform. This role offers the opportunity to shape architecture, influence regulatory-facing systems, and build proprietary technology from the ground up—while remaining deeply hands-on.

This is an ideal role for a senior technical leader who wants both strategic influence and direct technical ownership, rather than a purely managerial CTO position.

The Role

As Lead Engineer / CTO, you will serve as the principal technical authority for the organization. You will define architecture, guide development, and actively contribute code while overseeing a small but highly capable engineering group.

You will partner directly with executive leadership and work cross-functionally to ensure systems are secure, compliant, scalable, and production-ready. The environment demands strong engineering judgment, comfort operating in ambiguity, and the ability to design systems that can withstand regulatory scrutiny.

This role is remote-first, with the expectation that candidates are willing and able to collaborate in person on an as-needed basis.

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end system architecture across backend services, data stores, infrastructure, and integrations
• Design scalable, resilient systems supporting real-time data processing and high-throughput transactions
• Establish engineering standards, best practices, and long-term technical direction

Hands-On Engineering

• Remain actively involved in backend development, debugging, optimization, and prototyping
• Serve as the escalation point for complex technical challenges across the platform

Regulatory & Security Alignment

• Design and maintain systems that meet stringent regulatory, audit, and data security requirements
• Partner with compliance and legal stakeholders to translate regulatory objectives into technical controls
• Ensure strong auditability, secure data handling, and system transparency

Team Leadership & Delivery

• Lead and mentor internal engineers and external development partners
• Conduct code reviews and guide technical decision-making
• Balance speed, quality, and long-term maintainability

Infrastructure & Reliability

• Oversee cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, alerting, and incident response
• Ensure high availability, performance, and operational resilience

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with product, operations, and executive teams to align technology with business goals

Required Qualifications

• + years of professional software engineering experience
• + years in a senior technical leadership role (Lead Engineer, Head of Engineering, CTO, or similar)
• Proven experience building and operating production systems in regulated or high-compliance environments

Technical Expertise

• Strong backend engineering experience (Rust strongly preferred; comparable languages acceptable)
• Experience with relational databases at scale
• Hands-on DevOps experience, including CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform)
• Experience designing and operating cloud-native infrastructure (AWS preferred)
• Strong understanding of authentication, authorization, and security best practices
• Experience designing APIs and real-time or event-driven systems

Leadership & Problem Solving

• Builder mindset with a willingness to dive into the codebase when needed
• Strong technical judgment and ability to operate with minimal oversight
• Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with distributed or remote engineering teams
• Familiarity with blockchain, cryptographic systems, or decentralized architectures (not required)
• Background in financial, transactional, or compliance-driven platforms
• Experience contributing to proprietary IP or open-source projects

Work Model

• Remote-first within the United States
• Candidates must be open to periodic in-person collaboration as business needs arise
• No fixed office requirement

Why This Role

• Executive-level technical ownership with real architectural influence
• Opportunity to build and scale complex systems under real-world regulatory constraints
• Hands-on leadership role—not a “figurehead” CTO
• Competitive compensation and meaningful equity