Hands-On CTO: Scale Platform & Lead Engineering Teams

Dexian; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Dexian in the Washington, DC area is seeking a hands-on Chief Technology Officer to lead and scale a growing engineering organization during a pivotal product expansion. You will own architecture, coding oversight, and delivery while partnering with Product to move beta features to full market readiness.

The candidate will build high-performing teams, drive platform reliability and security, and manage cloud infrastructure with a focus on PostgreSQL, GCP, CI/CD, and modern full‑stack web apps.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering with increasing leadership responsibility.
• Experience leading engineering in startup or high-growth tech environments.
• Hands-on software engineering with recent involvement.
• Experience with PostgreSQL and SQL design.
• Experience with GCP.
• Experience with GitHub and CI/CD.
• Familiarity with Airflow or Hatchet.
• Experience building and scaling modern full-stack web applications.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, distributed systems, security and reliability.
• Demonstrated ability to recruit, mentor, and develop engineering talent.
• Excellent communication translating technical decisions into business impact.

Responsibilities

• Lead the overall technology strategy, architecture, and engineering execution aligned with business growth objectives.
• Partner with Product leadership to transition products from beta to commercial launch.
• Remain actively involved in software development, code reviews, technical design, and architectural decision-making.
• Build, mentor, and scale high-performing engineering teams.
• Drive engineering excellence, including code quality, testing practices, performance optimization, and development standards.
• Ensure platform scalability, reliability, security, and operational excellence.
• Oversee cloud infrastructure, system uptime, data security, and technical operations.
• Establish engineering processes, delivery frameworks, and technical best practices.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Sales, and Customer Success teams on launch readiness and prioritization.
• Manage technology budgets, vendor relationships, and tooling decisions.
• Balance rapid execution with long-term platform sustainability and technical debt management.
• Foster a collaborative, accountable, and high-performance engineering culture.

Skills

Leadership

Hands-on coding

Communication

Tools

PostgreSQL

SQL Database Design

Google Cloud Platform

GitHub

CI/CD

Airflow

Hatchet

Job description

Dexian in the Washington, DC area is seeking a hands-on Chief Technology Officer to lead and scale a growing engineering organization during a pivotal product expansion. You will own architecture, coding oversight, and delivery while partnering with Product to move beta features to full market readiness.

The candidate will build high-performing teams, drive platform reliability and security, and manage cloud infrastructure with a focus on PostgreSQL, GCP, CI/CD, and modern full‑stack web apps.