[Hiring] Chief Technology Officer @Wave

Role Description

We're looking for a CTO who wants to own engineering end to end: the systems, the people, and the standards for a company whose work changes lives.

• Keep us fast as we get bigger: favor fewer processes, simple designs, and deeply understood tools.
• Own reliability: set standards for uptime, incident response, and accountability.
• Build and lead the leadership layer: inherit 5 direct reports and an engineering organization of ~132 people.
• Set our vision on AI: ship AI in production and help us be truly AI forward.
• Support expansion: plan the right architecture and organizational structure for growth.
• Represent engineering to the company: communicate clearly about engineering activities to various audiences.

Qualifications

• Managed an engineering organization of at least ~100 people.
• Software engineering background with the ability to read code and follow technical arguments.
• Accountable for a system where failure was expensive (money, safety, or regulated data).
• Experience hiring senior engineering leaders and addressing underperformance.
• Strong writing skills: clear, short, and persuasive for non-engineers.
• Actual point of view on AI in engineering based on experience.
• Belief in the company's mission and ability to articulate it.

Requirements

• Preference for running a great team over being the smartest engineer in the room.
• Comfortable addressing unwelcome truths in meetings without personalizing them.
• Ability to change opinions publicly when evidence changes.
• Preference for the simplest system that works over the most interesting one.
• Concern for user experience and outcomes, especially in challenging conditions.
• Responsibility for outcomes rather than processes, even when outcomes are negative.
• Attraction to a company that values transparency and direct feedback.

Benefits

• Subsidized health insurance for you and your dependents.
• Retirement contributions (vary by country).
• 6 months of fully paid parental leave and subsidized fertility assistance.
• Flexible vacation, with most employees taking between 21-30 days exclusive of statutory holidays.
• $10,000 annual charitable donation matching.
• Yearly $1,200 stipend for coworking meetups with teammates.

Company Description

We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Uganda, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon plus remote team members spread across the world.

• Deeply passionate about our mission of bringing radically affordable financial services to those who need them most.
• Foster autonomy for employees; own projects from problem understanding to production monitoring.
• Raised the largest Series A in Africa in 2021 with world-class investors.
• Ranked among Y Combinator's top companies by revenue.