Hands-On CTO: AI-Driven, Security-Focused, Remote

Jobless; Pasadena (CA); Hybrid; USD 300,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first culture

Pasadena office available

Unlimited PTO

Health insurance

401k match

Job summary

Scratch Financial is seeking a Chief Technology Officer to lead engineering, infrastructure, and security for a ~30-person team in a remote-first, Pasadena-based setup. The role blends hands-on technical work with building process, standards, and a bench of leaders to scale the organization through diligence and growth.

You will own security as a first-class function, drive SDLC rigor, and shape an AI-enabled product strategy, while managing distributed teams and aligning tech with business

Qualifications

• Has led security function directly with audits/compliance exposure.
• Built observability, alerting, and security systems from near-ground-zero.

Responsibilities

• Build engineering process and operational maturity from the ground up.
• Revitalize and run security function with audits and compliance readiness.
• Bring a credible AI and engineering vision grounded in hands-on experience.
• Lead a distributed, remote-first engineering team with delegation.
• Operate with commercial and financial fluency tying tech decisions to business value.
• Communicate with transparency for internal and external audiences.

Skills

Observability

Security leadership

AI development

Distributed cloud backends

SDLC / DevOps

Job description

Scratch Financial is seeking a Chief Technology Officer to lead engineering, infrastructure, and security for a ~30-person team in a remote-first, Pasadena-based setup. The role blends hands-on technical work with building process, standards, and a bench of leaders to scale the organization through diligence and growth.

You will own security as a first-class function, drive SDLC rigor, and shape an AI-enabled product strategy, while managing distributed teams and aligning tech with business