Harrington Starr
CTO - Hands on
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CTO (Hands on)
London – Hybrid
Java, Payments, Microservices, Spring Boot, AWS
The Company
This is an exceptional opportunity for a hands-on CTO to join a fast-growing payments startup in the market. With ambitious scaling plans and a growing team of engineers, they are building modern payment infrastructure serving institutional and enterprise clients. You'll own the technical vision while staying deeply involved in coding, architecture, and delivery.
Competitive salary, equity package, and top benefits in place.
What You Will Get
- Up to £200,000 basic + equity depending on experience
- Significant equity stake in the business
- Performance bonus
- Comprehensive health, pension, and protective benefits
- Flexible working and hybrid arrangement
- Clear path to CTO/Co-Founder level responsibility
- Opportunity to shape technical culture and hiring
- Collaborative, fast-paced founding team
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What You Will Do
- Lead a growing engineering team (currently 5-8) while remaining hands-on in code
- Design and architect modern payment processing systems and infrastructure
- Build robust, scalable microservices for payments, settlements, and compliance
- Mentor and develop engineering talent; set technical standards and best practices
- Own end-to-end delivery from concept through production
- Collaborate with product, compliance, and finance on payments domain
- Drive technical roadmap and technology decisions
- Ensure system reliability, security, and PCI-DSS compliance
What You Need:
- 10+ years Java development with experience in payments
- Proven hands-on experience building payment systems, settlement platforms, or financial infrastructure
- Strong expertise in microservices, Spring Boot, REST APIs, event-driven architecture
- Deep understanding of payments domain (FIX, SWIFT, payment rails, settlement, reconciliation)
- Experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred), Docker, Kubernetes
- Strong team leadership and hiring experience; ability to build and mentor engineers
- Comfortable with regulatory/compliance requirements (PCI-DSS, AML/KYC mindset)
- Excellent communication skills across technical and non-technical stakeholders
- A right to work in the UK without sponsorship
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Bonus Points:
- Cryptocurrency or digital asset payments experience
- Startup/scale-up experience
- Cross-border payments expertise
- Experience with real-time payment systems or instant settlement
Find Out More
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