Head of Engineering

W Talent; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote US

Equity

Competitive salary

Job summary

W Talent is seeking a Head of Engineering / CTO for a high-growth FinTech. This fully remote role reports to the CEO and leads a 10-20 person engineering organization. You will set technical direction, own architecture and roadmap, and balance speed with security and reliability.

You will stay hands-on, review designs, hire and develop leaders, and partner with product, legal and compliance to scale the business during rapid growth. Distributed remote leadership is valued.

Qualifications

• Must have led engineering teams of 10–20 people across multiple functions.
• Strong hands-on technical background with architecture and production issues.

Responsibilities

• Own technical strategy, architecture and roadmap balancing speed with security and reliability.
• Lead, mentor and develop a cross-functional team of 10–20 engineers, QA, DevOps, data and security.
• Stay hands-on: review designs and code, unblock the team and resolve critical problems.
• Build lightweight processes for planning, delivery, incident response and technical decision-making.
• Hire, onboard and retain engineers and managers and grow future leaders.
• Partner with the CEO and leadership team on trade-offs, risks and timelines.
• Align engineering with product, compliance, legal and operations.

Job description

Head of Engineering / CTO, High-Growth FinTech

Location: Fully remote, anywhere in the US

Reports to: CEO

About the company

Our client is a high-growth FinTech at the point where growth is stretching how the team works. They need a CTO / Head of Engineering who has been through that stage before, to lead engineering and build the team and operating rhythm for the next phase.

This is a player-coach role: set technical direction in the morning, work a hard production problem with an engineer in the afternoon, and keep the team motivated and clear on priorities throughout.

What you'll do

• Own technical strategy, architecture and roadmap, balancing speed with security, reliability and maintainability
• Lead, mentor and develop a cross-functional team of 10-20 (engineering, QA, DevOps/infrastructure, data, security)
• Stay hands-on: review designs and code, unblock the team and step into critical problems
• Build lightweight processes for planning, delivery, incident response and technical decision-making
• Hire, onboard and retain strong engineers and managers, and grow future leaders
• Partner with the CEO and leadership team, giving clear, honest advice on trade-offs, risks and timelines
• Work with product, compliance, legal and operations so engineering reflects regulatory and security needs
• Build a culture of ownership, candour and psychological safety through rapid growth

What we're looking for

• Has managed teams of 10-20 across more than one function, with a track record of building and retaining them
• Strong technical background and still hands-on, credible in architecture, code and production issues
• Has helped scale a business or engineering organisation and understands the growing pains first-hand
• Experience working directly with executives or founders
• High emotional intelligence and excellent people skills, as important as technical ability
• Empathetic, direct manager who handles difficult conversations well and builds trust
• Calm, practical problem-solver who brings the team along
• Clear communicator with technical and non-technical audiences
• Comfortable leading a distributed, remote-first team

Nice to have:

Fintech or other regulated environments; high-availability or transaction-critical systems; previous CTO, VP or Head of Engineering experience at a small-to-mid-sized company.

What's on offer

• Fully remote, anywhere in the US
• Significant scope and influence at a small, growing company
• Competitive salary and equity