CTO Web3

Job description / Role

Description

As CTO, Web3, you will set the technology strategy and roadmap across all decentralised systems. You will oversee architecture, engineering excellence, security, product-technology alignment, and innovation. You will lead high-performing teams across smart contracts, blockchain infrastructure, cryptography, data, operations, and devops, ensuring quality, scalability, and compliance. You will also represent the company’s technical leadership in strategic decisions, partnerships, investor conversations, and community engagement.

Key responsibilities

• Define and lead the company’s overall Web3 technology strategy, balancing long-term innovation with scalable, secure execution.
• Architect the technology stack for decentralised applications, protocols, chain infrastructure, layer-2/roll-ups, side-chains, bridges, privacy and identity systems.
• Oversee smart contract development, auditing, security, formal verification, upgradeability, gas optimisation, and best practices.
• Establish and enforce architecture governance — ensure modular, maintainable, testable, and upgradeable systems.
• Drive R&D into emerging Web3 technologies and assess their suitability.
• Ensure operations and infrastructure (nodes, wallets, key management, network monitoring, CI/CD, deployment pipelines) are reliable, secure, performant, and cost-effective.
• Manage security posture: penetration testing, threat modelling, risk assessments, audits; ensure compliance with relevant regulatory frameworks.
• Lead, mentor and build world-class technical teams — developers, architects, devops, security, infrastructure. Foster best practice, continuous learning, and high engineering standards.
• Collaborate with product, design, legal, compliance, finance, and business development to ensure technological feasibility, product-market fit, and alignment with business goals.
• Represent the company externally: engage with technical community, open source, partners, token holders or governance bodies, investors.
• Monitor industry trends and competitive landscape; evaluate partnership or investment opportunities; promote innovation culture.

Requirements

• Substantial experience (10+ years) in senior technical leadership roles; proven track record of leading engineering and architecture in Web3 or blockchain environments.
• Deep expertise in blockchain systems, consensus mechanisms, cryptography, smart contract languages.
• Strong grounding in distributed systems, network architecture, peer-to-peer protocols, scalability, side-chains, cross-chain/bridge technology.
• Experienced in security disciplines: threat modelling, secure code review, formal verification, audits.
• Familiar with privacy technologies (zero-knowledge proofs, MPC, secure multi-party computation, homomorphic encryption, etc.), identity systems (DIDs), oracles.
• Solid understanding of regulatory, compliance, and legal considerations in Web3/crypto/tokenisation.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, node operations, scaling, deployment pipelines, containerisation (Docker/Kubernetes), serverless where applicable.
• Previous experience building, scaling, and managing large engineering teams; strong leadership, mentoring, hiring, technical decision-making.
• Excellent communication skills; ability to articulate technical strategy to non-technical stakeholders (executive board, investors), negotiate trade-offs, and guide cross-functional alignment.

Nice-to-haves

• Prior CTO, VP of Engineering, or equivalent senior leadership role in a Web3/blockchain/crypto company.
• Experience launching or operating DeFi protocols, token launches, NFTs, DAOs, or working in metaverse/gaming/identity sectors.
• Open source contributions in blockchain or cryptography projects; recognised community involvement.
• Experience of cross-chain interoperability or bridging, or multi-chain architecture.
• Exposure to financial regulation or legal frameworks in UK/EU/US as relevant.

Educational qualifications

Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Cryptography, or related technical field — or equivalent hands-on experience. Postgraduate qualifications are a plus but not essential.