Director of Technology (CTO)

Kafaa Capital - كفاءة المالية; Riyadh; On-site; SAR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

Kafaa Capital - كفاءة المالية in Riyadh is seeking a Director of Technology (CTO-equivalent) to own the technology strategy, architecture, and engineering execution, ensuring a scalable, secure, and reliable platform.

You will lead end-to-end delivery from onboarding and KYC to payments and open banking, manage cloud, CI/CD, security, and CMA/NCA/PDPL/AML/KYC compliance, while guiding a growing engineering team and external partners in a regulated fintech environment.

Qualifications

• Saudi national (Mandatory).
• CMA 1 Certification (General Securities Qualification Certificate from CMA) - Mandatory.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field.
• Minimum 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including hands-on production work.
• Minimum 3+ years in an engineering leadership role with direct responsibility for hiring, team management, and delivery.
• Proven track record of owning complex systems end-to-end (architecture, delivery, and operations) in fast-paced environments.
• Strong command of system design, scalability, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, and production monitoring.
• Professional working proficiency in both Arabic and English.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the technology strategy, architecture, and engineering standards.
• Lead system modernization, refactoring, performance optimization, and engineering practices.
• Translate business goals into technical roadmaps with security priorities.
• Lead end-to-end delivery of onboarding, KYC, payment flows, open banking, and investment lifecycles.
• Own cloud infrastructure, environments, CI/CD pipelines, disaster recovery, and operations.
• Establish observability, logging, and incident response standards for high availability.
• Ensure CMA cybersecurity guidelines, NCA controls, PDPL, and AML/KYC compliance.
• Manage external penetration testing, vulnerability remediation, and vendor risks.
• Lead integrations with banks, payment gateways, and identity providers.
• Build, mentor, and lead the internal engineering team and external partners.

Skills

Leadership

End-to-end ownership

Bilingual Arabic/English

System design

Cloud & CI/CD

Production monitoring

Security & compliance awareness

Fintech knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Software Eng/IT

CMA 1 Certification (General Securities)

Tools

CI/CD tooling

Cloud platforms

Security testing tools

Job description

About Kafaa Capital:

Kafaa Capital is a CMA-licensed investment platform in Saudi Arabia, specializing in Shariah-compliant sukuk-based investment and financing solutions. Headquartered in Riyadh, we are developing next-generation digital investment infrastructure with a strong focus on transparency, compliance, and innovation. We are looking for a Director of Technology (CTO-equivalent) to own our technology strategy, architecture, and engineering execution, ensuring our platform remains scalable, secure, and reliable.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and execute the technology strategy, system architecture, and engineering standards across backend, web, mobile, and data integrations.
• Lead system modernization, refactoring, performance optimization, and establish robust software engineering practices.
• Translate business goals into actionable technical roadmaps, balancing new feature delivery, technical debt, and security priorities.
• Lead end-to-end technical delivery of core platform initiatives, including onboarding, KYC, payment flows, open banking, and investment lifecycles.
• Own cloud infrastructure, environments, CI/CD pipelines, disaster recovery, and operational performance across development and production.
• Establish observability, logging, and incident response standards to ensure high platform availability and reliability.
• Own technical readiness and compliance for CMA cybersecurity guidelines, NCA Essential Cybersecurity Controls, PDPL, and AML/KYC operational controls.
• Manage annual external penetration testing, vulnerability remediation, third-party vendor risks, and audit evidence packs.
• Lead technical integrations with banks, payment gateways, identity verification providers, and financial market infrastructure.
• Build, mentor, and lead the internal engineering team, while managing external contract delivery partners to maintain high performance standards.

Qualifications & Requirements:

• Saudi national (Mandatory).
• CMA 1 Certification (General Securities Qualification Certificate from CMA) - Mandatory.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field.
• Minimum 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including hands-on production work.
• Minimum 3+ years in an engineering leadership role with direct responsibility for hiring, team management, and delivery.
• Proven track record of owning complex systems end-to-end (architecture, delivery, and operations) in fast-paced environments.
• Strong command of system design, scalability, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, and production monitoring.
• Professional working proficiency in both Arabic and English.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Previous fintech experience, particularly with regulated financial platforms, onboarding/KYC, payment flows, or investment products.
• Hands-on experience integrating with banking networks, payment systems, and third-party financial data providers.
• Proven experience guiding security and compliance programs through external audits or regulatory inspections.
• Experience modernizing legacy codebases and leading architecture, data, or operational migrations.
• Strong familiarity with Agile methodologies tailored for fast-moving engineering teams.

Key Competencies:

• Ownership mindset and high accountability with the ability to execute under ambiguity.
• Exceptional communication skills, capable of bridging technical details for non-technical executive stakeholders.
• Systems thinking, pragmatic decision-making, and risk-based prioritization.