[Hiring] Experienced Startup CTO possible co-founder role, hands on Rust, startup experience a must have @Travoom

Role Description

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Founding Technical Leadership Role • Rust • Real-Time Systems • Social • AI • Payments

Please read the full job description before applying.

We are not looking for a traditional corporate CTO. We are looking for a hands-on technical leader who still builds, ships, reviews architecture, and understands modern product engineering at scale.

This role is for someone who combines strong engineering judgment with startup execution ability — someone comfortable moving between backend architecture, real-time systems, infrastructure, product strategy, and technical leadership.

OleOle is building a football-focused social network and super app combining:

• Real-time social feeds and microblogging
• Messaging and mobile communication
• TikTok-style short-form video
• Live scores and sports engagement
• AI-powered translation and football history
• Rewards, payments, and future crypto infrastructure

This role may evolve into a co-founder-level position for the right person. You will define the long-term technical architecture of the company while also helping build and ship the platform alongside the engineering team.

We are not looking for a CTO who has spent the last 20 years only managing meetings, vendors, and process. We are looking for someone who still codes, still understands systems deeply, and still enjoys building.

Qualifications

• 7–15+ years of software engineering and technical leadership experience, ideally within startups or high-growth consumer technology platforms
• Strong hands-on engineering background with active involvement in architecture, systems design, and production codebases
• Significant experience building and scaling modern consumer platforms involving real-time systems, high concurrency, and large-scale user engagement
• Strong production Rust experience building asynchronous backend systems and distributed infrastructure
• Deep understanding of backend architecture, APIs, event-driven systems, databases, caching, and scalable infrastructure design
• Experience building or operating one or more of the following:
• Social feeds and microblogging systems
• Messaging or real-time communication platforms
• TikTok-style video or media infrastructure
• Financial, wallet, fintech, or gambling infrastructure
• AI-powered consumer products
• Large-scale SEO or content infrastructure
• Ability to make pragmatic technical tradeoffs balancing scalability, performance, speed, maintainability, and operational simplicity
• Experience leading and mentoring engineering teams while remaining deeply technical and hands-on
• Comfortable operating in fast-moving startup environments with ambiguity, evolving priorities, and limited process
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain architectural decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Strong entrepreneurial judgment, ownership mentality, and execution focus

Requirements

• Define and lead the long-term technical architecture of the platform
• Lead backend architecture and infrastructure strategy using Rust-based systems
• Help build scalable systems supporting feeds, messaging, live updates, video, and data infrastructure
• Oversee engineering direction across backend, frontend, infrastructure, and product systems
• Partner closely with leadership on product and company strategy
• Establish engineering culture, hiring standards, and technical execution processes
• Work directly with engineers on architecture reviews, tradeoffs, and implementation decisions
• Help design future financial infrastructure including rewards, wallets, payments, and crypto-related systems
• Support AI-powered systems including translation, recommendation, search, and football history infrastructure
• Ensure scalability, reliability, performance, and security across all systems

Benefits

• Significant equity ownership
• Long-term token participation
• Founding-level influence over the company and platform

Additional Information

Building a platform like OleOle is difficult by design. We are not looking for people who avoid hard technical problems — we are looking for builders who are energized by solving them.

• Creative problem solvers who are willing to challenge assumptions, propose new ideas, and help build better systems rather than simply repeating existing patterns
• Engineers who can adapt across a broad range of technologies, infrastructure challenges, and evolving product requirements
• People who are comfortable operating in fast-moving startup environments with ambiguity, shifting priorities, and limited process
• Strong entrepreneurial judgment with the ability to work independently and take ownership without requiring constant direction or micromanagement
• Builders who focus on practical execution, scalability, and product quality rather than unnecessary complexity
• Engineers who embrace difficult challenges and enjoy helping shape products from the ground floor