Founding CTO / Technical Lead at Ihsan – Remote Blockchain & Payments Job
Ihsan is looking for a Founding CTO / Technical Lead to lead the technical development of its next-generation messenger and stablecoin payments ecosystem.
This is a senior technology leadership opportunity for an experienced software engineer, CTO, VP of Engineering, Head of Engineering, principal engineer, or technical architect who wants to take ownership of a major product from an early stage.
The position can be structured as full-time or fractional-to-full-time, providing flexibility for the right candidate.
Ihsan is building a global messenger and super app designed to support a strong, connected, and economically empowered Muslim community. Its upcoming product, Ihsan Pay, will introduce self-custodial stablecoin payments directly into the messenger.
The successful candidate will play a central role in designing the architecture, leading the engineering team, establishing security standards, and taking the platform from its early-stage development toward production at potentially millions of users.
About Ihsan
Ihsan is developing a global communication platform with ambitions to expand beyond messaging into a broader digital ecosystem.
The company's upcoming payment product, Ihsan Pay, is designed to allow users to make payments directly through the messenger using stablecoins.
The planned ecosystem includes features such as:
- Chat payments
- QR payments
- Merchant payments
- Stablecoin wallets
- On/off-ramp integrations
- Card functionality
🎓 Invest in Your Future
Master in-demand skills with expert-led courses on Programming, AI, Data Science, Business, Finance, Marketing, Design and thousands more.
🚀 Explore Udemy Courses✔ Learn at your own pace | ✔ Lifetime access | ✔ Certificates of completion
A major focus of the product is self-custody, meaning users should maintain genuine control over their digital assets rather than having the company directly control customer funds.
This makes security, wallet architecture, recovery mechanisms, transaction integrity, and operational resilience particularly important.
About the Founding CTO / Technical Lead Role
The Founding CTO / Technical Lead will own the overall technical architecture of the Ihsan platform and define the technical architecture for Ihsan Pay.
This is not simply a management position. Ihsan is looking for someone who remains technically hands-on while providing leadership and strategic direction to the engineering organization.
The successful candidate will work closely with the founders and engineering team to establish the technical foundation required to support a secure and scalable consumer platform.
Key Responsibilities
Own Technical Architecture
The Founding CTO will be responsible for designing and maintaining the architecture of the wider Ihsan platform.
This includes determining how the messenger, payment infrastructure, backend services, mobile applications, blockchain components, and external integrations work together.
The candidate will also define the architecture for Ihsan Pay and ensure that systems can evolve from an MVP into a platform capable of supporting millions of users.
Lead the Engineering Team
The successful candidate will lead and supervise the internal engineering team.
Responsibilities will include recruiting additional engineers, mentoring team members, establishing engineering standards, and creating a strong technical culture.
The CTO will be expected to remain hands-on and contribute directly to important technical decisions and code reviews.
Self-Custodial Wallet Architecture
One of the most important aspects of the position is ensuring that Ihsan Pay remains genuinely self-custodial.
The CTO will define technical models for:
- Wallet signing
- Key management
- Account recovery
- Key export
- Transaction authorization
- User fund separation
The successful candidate must understand the difference between technical self-custody and situations where a company or infrastructure provider effectively retains legal or technical control over user funds.
Security and Risk Management
Because Ihsan Pay will involve digital assets and payments, security will be a core responsibility.
The Founding CTO will establish engineering, security, testing, and documentation standards.
The role will also involve reviewing backend, mobile, and blockchain code and ensuring that vulnerabilities are identified and addressed before they become production risks.
The CTO will coordinate independent security audits and penetration testing and establish processes for incident response and disaster recovery.
Infrastructure and Reliability
The candidate will oversee infrastructure, deployment, observability, reconciliation, incident response, and disaster recovery.
The system must be designed to remain reliable as the user base grows.
Experience with distributed systems and high-availability consumer applications will therefore be highly valuable.
The CTO will also need to ensure appropriate separation between user funds and company or partner systems.
Payment Infrastructure
Ihsan Pay is expected to support a range of payment-related functionality.
The ideal candidate should understand systems involving:
- APIs
- Webhooks
- Queues
- Reconciliation
- Idempotency
- Payment processing
- Digital wallets
- Stablecoins
- Financial infrastructure
🎓 Invest in Your Future
Master in-demand skills with expert-led courses on Programming, AI, Data Science, Business, Finance, Marketing, Design and thousands more.
🚀 Explore Udemy Courses✔ Learn at your own pace | ✔ Lifetime access | ✔ Certificates of completion
Experience with payment systems, fintech, remittance, neobanking, wallets, or digital assets will be particularly useful.
Requirements
Applicants should have at least eight years of professional software-engineering experience.
Previous experience as a CTO, VP of Engineering, Head of Engineering, principal engineer, or technical architect is expected.
Candidates should also have experience leading and hiring engineering teams while remaining comfortable with hands-on technical work.
Strong backend and distributed-systems knowledge is essential.
Applicants should have experience designing secure, highly available consumer platforms and understand application security and incident response.
Experience taking products from development through production scale will also be important.
Blockchain and Fintech Experience
Experience in blockchain, stablecoins, payments, or financial technology can provide an advantage.
Knowledge of Solana is particularly relevant to Ihsan's technology stack.
The company also considers experience with technologies and providers such as Privy, Turnkey, Web3Auth, Fireblocks, and MPC wallets valuable.
Candidates who have previously integrated KYC providers, on/off-ramp services, card-issuing providers, or other financial infrastructure should highlight this experience.
Technology Stack
The role is expected to work with technologies including:
React Native · TypeScript · Go · PostgreSQL · Solana
Experience with messaging or real-time communication systems is also desirable, particularly for candidates who have helped scale consumer applications to millions of users.
Previous founding-engineer or early-stage CTO experience can be another significant advantage.
Who Should Apply?
This opportunity may be suitable for:
- Chief Technology Officers
- Founding CTOs
- VP Engineering professionals
- Heads of Engineering
- Principal Engineers
- Technical Architects
- Founding Engineers
- Senior Backend Engineers with leadership experience
- Blockchain Engineering Leaders
- Fintech Technology Leaders
Candidates should be comfortable working in an early-stage environment where they will have substantial ownership over technical decisions.
Compensation and Benefits
Ihsan offers competitive compensation and meaningful long-term equity participation.
The successful candidate will have the opportunity to make major architectural decisions from an early stage and help build an entirely new messenger and payment ecosystem.
Other benefits include the opportunity to lead and grow the future engineering organization and work on technology designed for global impact.
Why This Role Stands Out
The position combines several rapidly developing areas of technology, including messaging, stablecoins, blockchain, self-custody, payments, fintech, and distributed systems.
For an experienced technical leader, the opportunity provides significant ownership rather than simply joining an established engineering department.
The Founding CTO will help determine how the product is built, secured, scaled, and operated.
🎓 Invest in Your Future
Master in-demand skills with expert-led courses on Programming, AI, Data Science, Business, Finance, Marketing, Design and thousands more.
🚀 Explore Udemy Courses✔ Learn at your own pace | ✔ Lifetime access | ✔ Certificates of completion
How to Apply
Interested candidates should submit their application directly to Ihsan.
📩 Application Email: vincent@ihsan.com
Candidates should include their CV and LinkedIn profile, along with links to GitHub or other relevant technical work.
Applicants should also provide examples of systems they have architected or scaled, previous team sizes they have led, and relevant experience in fintech, payments, wallets, or blockchain.
The application also asks candidates to provide their location, availability, compensation expectations, and whether they are interested in the full-time or fractional-to-full-time arrangement.
Candidates should be prepared to answer technical questions concerning self-custody, messenger architecture, stablecoin-payment risks, and the division of technical responsibilities between Ihsan and its infrastructure partners.
Official company website: Ihsan
Original vacancy:
Final Thoughts
The Founding CTO / Technical Lead position at Ihsan presents a significant opportunity for an experienced technology leader interested in building at the intersection of Web3, stablecoins, payments, messaging, and fintech.
The role requires more than technical knowledge. The successful candidate must be capable of building an engineering organization, making high-stakes architectural decisions, establishing strong security practices, and helping transform an early-stage product into a reliable global platform.
Professionals with extensive software-engineering leadership experience and a background in payments, digital assets, wallets, distributed systems, or consumer fintech should consider this opportunity.
Because this is a founding-level position, applicants should be prepared to demonstrate substantial technical ownership and provide concrete evidence of systems they have built, scaled, secured, or led.
Comments
Post a Comment