Mission
What you will actually build
This role is for a true builder who wants to turn complex market logic into a clean, scalable, long-horizon system.
- A deal-centric architecture where each bond transaction becomes a structured system object rather than a collection of screens and forms.
- A multi-engine platform where Risk, Pricing and Execution interact through explicit coupling logic.
- Canonical transaction data models, feature pipelines and versioned decision layers.
- A platform in which pricing is not merely predicted, but translated into executable financing decisions.
- Explainable model integration where users can understand what changed, why it changed and what should be done next.
- The engineering culture, code quality and architectural direction of the company from day one.
Early architecture decisions you make here may still be visible in the company ten years from now.
Founder triangle
How this role fits the company
We are deliberately building a three-part founder system rather than collapsing market logic, system architecture and quantitative truth into one person.
Founder
- Defines the market thesis, issuer problem and commercial direction
- Owns category framing, customer learning and company-building momentum
Founding Quant
- Defines pricing, risk, execution and scenario logic
- Owns the economic and analytical truth of the system
CTO / CPTO
- Turns market and quant logic into a scalable platform architecture
- Owns system design, data model, workflow engine and technical standards
Your role in practice
- You are the system brain, not a generic manager and not the lone quant
- Your job is to make economic logic computable, explainable and product-grade
Founder / market
Quant / economics
CTO / system
One integrated product
Required profile
What you should already have done
We are not looking for a generic tech manager, a pure frontend leader or a prompt-engineering CTO.
- Built products or platforms from scratch in data-intensive environments.
- Strong hands-on Python capability and comfort moving between architecture and implementation.
- Designed systems where data models were central abstractions, not supporting afterthoughts.
- Built multi-component systems rather than only isolated apps, dashboards or API wrappers.
- Experience with cloud-native architecture, pipelines, versioning, validation and production discipline.
- Ability to translate messy real-world workflows into clean system boundaries.
- FinTech or capital-markets exposure is strongly preferred; regulated or high-trust environments are highly relevant.
Working model
What you own versus what you shape together
This role does not require you to invent every financial model alone. It does require you to make the whole system real, robust and coherent together with the Founder and Founding Quant.
You will own
- System architecture
- Platform engineering direction
- Canonical data model and workflow boundaries
- Model integration, validation, versioning and technical standards
You will shape together
- Risk / Pricing / Execution logic
- Canonical feature design
- Decision-system UX surfaces
- Research-to-platform translation
Self-selection
The kinds of questions that should energise you
- What is the right system design when the transaction object is the product?
- How do you represent a deal so that scenario changes remain structured, auditable and explainable?
- What is the difference between a fair-value estimate and an executable pricing recommendation?
- How should multiple engines interact without collapsing into one opaque model?
- When does a model become a decision system?
- How do you keep architecture clean when the real-world workflow is institutionally messy?
Culture
How we want to work
- Intellectual honesty and obligation to dissent.
- Low ego, high ownership and long-term infrastructure thinking.
- Institutional seriousness combined with startup speed.
- Preference for clarity over jargon and depth over theatre.
- AI-first curiosity, but never AI theatre.
- Deep collaboration with Founder, Quant and product rather than siloed ownership theatre.
- Hybrid collaboration with regular presence in the Frankfurt metro area.
What this role is not
Important anti-patterns
- Not a corporate IT management role.
- Not a title-first vanity CTO position.
- Not a pure LLM wrapper, prompt-engineering or demo-layer role.
- Not a fit for candidates who default to black-box ML over structured reasoning.
- Not a fit for candidates whose experience is mainly frontend, mobile or thin integration layers.
- Not a fit for people who optimise for technical elegance while ignoring economic correctness.