CTO — Remote-First Fintech for Pet Care & AI

Scratchpay; Pasadena (CA); On-site; USD 300,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity program

Unlimited PTO

Healthcare coverage

401k match

Pasadena office access

Learning resources

Parental leave

Job summary

Scratch Financial is seeking a Chief Technology Officer in a hands-on leadership role to guide engineering, infrastructure, and security for a ~30-person team. You’ll review architecture, remove roadblocks, and set a high technical bar while building a bench that lets the org run without you.

You’ll craft a credible AI/engineering vision and own security as a first‑class function with audits and compliance readiness. This remote-first role pairs technical excellence with business insight.

Qualifications

• Has led a company through a sale and prepared for diligence.
• Built observability, alerting, and security systems from ground zero.
• Led a security function with audits and compliance experience.
• Hands-on with agentic AI development and practical applications.
• Background in distributed cloud backends, database scaling, and API architecture.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering process and operational maturity from ground up, including security practices.
• Own security as a first-class function with audits and compliance readiness.
• Drive an AI and engineering vision grounded in hands-on experience.
• Lead a distributed, remote-first engineering team and delegate effectively.
• Balance technology decisions with cost, business value, and speed-to-delivery.
• Communicate transparently with internal and external stakeholders.

Skills

Observability

Security

AI vision

Cloud architecture

SDLC

FinOps

Distributed backend

Tools

Stripe-like payments

Third-party integrations

Job description

Scratch Financial is seeking a Chief Technology Officer in a hands-on leadership role to guide engineering, infrastructure, and security for a ~30-person team. You’ll review architecture, remove roadblocks, and set a high technical bar while building a bench that lets the org run without you.

You’ll craft a credible AI/engineering vision and own security as a first‑class function with audits and compliance readiness. This remote-first role pairs technical excellence with business insight.