CTO - Blockchain Architect

Job Description

Blockchain Architect

Key Responsibilities: 1) Platform & Protocol Architecture

• Own end-to-end architecture for stablecoin issuance, treasury, and lifecycle (mint/burn, reserves, redemptions, fee mechanics).

• Select and justify chains/L2s (EVM, Cosmos SDK/IBC, Solana, enterprise/permissioned) and interoperability approaches (native deployment, IBC, cross-chain messaging/bridges).

• Define smart contract patterns (upgradeability, access control, pausability, circuit breakers), token standards (ERC‑20/677/777/4626), and event schemas.

We’re looking for a hands-on Blockchain Architect to design and lead the build-out of our S tablecoin and Tokenization platform and crypto trading capabilities (CEX/DEX connectivity, liquidity, and settlement). You’ll drive protocol selection, smart contract architecture, wallet/custody strategy, interoperability, and integration with risk/compliance, treasury, and market infrastructure—delivering high security, regulatory alignment, and scale.

2) Stablecoin/Tokenization Design & Treasury

• Design reserve backing model (fiat-backed with custodial attestation, crypto-collateralized, or hybrid) and proof-of-reserves/attestation workflows.

• Integrate oracles (price, FX, interest rates) with anti‑manipulation controls (deviation thresholds, TWAPs, circuit breakers).

• Build treasury operations: issuance/redemption flows, fees, rebalancing, settlement windows, liquidity waterfalls, reconciliation.

) Trading, Liquidity & Market Connectivity

• Architect connectivity to exchanges (CEX REST/WebSocket/FIX), DEXs (AMM/RFQ), and liquidity providers.

• Design/guide Smart Order Routing (SOR), execution policies (VWAP/TWAP/IOC), slippage/latency thresholds, fee optimization, and gas-aware routing.

• Define data pipelines for ticks, order books, trades; ensure market data integrity and replay/simulation environments.

4) Security, Custody & Key Management

• Lead wallet architecture (hot/warm/cold segregation), MPC/HSM strategy, and key ceremonies with dual control and audit trails.

• Mandate secure SDLC: threat modeling, formal verification targets, static/dynamic analysis, fuzzing, dependency provenance.

• Own incident response plans: kill‑switches, circuit breakers, pause & recovery, and post‑mortem processes.

5) Compliance, Risk & Controls

• Embed KYC/AML, sanctions screening (OFAC), Travel Rule flows, and transaction risk scoring (on-chain analytics).

• Align with applicable frameworks (e.g., MiCA, FATF recommendations, local VASP regimes). Coordinate with Legal/Compliance on policy-as-code controls.

• Design auditability (immutable logs, merkleized state proofs, attestations) and data retention.

6) Interoperability & Bridges

• Evaluate IBC, generalized messaging (e.g., Layer Zero), and bridge options (trust assumptions, validator sets, light client models).
• Define patterns for cross-chain mints/burns, canonical token mapping, replay protection, and exit/rollback strategies.

7) Reliability, Observability & DevOps

• Establish SLOs/SLIs (issuance latency, confirmation finality, reconciliation accuracy).

• Set up observability (metrics, logs, traces, on-chain event monitors, MEV/sandwich detection).

• CI/CD for contracts and infra, env promotion (dev/test/stage/mainnet), canary releases, infra as code (Terraform).

8) Leadership & Collaboration

• Partner with Product, Treasury, Compliance, Security, and Trading to roadmap delivery.
• Mentor engineers on smart contracts, cryptography basics, and blockchain performance trade-offs.

Vendor/platform evaluation & build-vs-buy decisions.

Qualifications:

• 12–15+ years in software engineering with4–6+ years building blockchain systems at scale.

• Hands-on smart contracts in Solidity (EVM) and/or Rust (Cosmos SDK/Solana); deep knowledge of token standards, proxies, and upgrade patterns.

• Proven architecture of stablecoin/tokenization components (issuance, reserves, oracles, attestation) or trading systems (exchange connectivity, SOR, market data).

• Strong grasp of custody/MPC/HSM, wallet segregation, and key lifecycle management.

• Security-first mindset: threat modeling, audits, formal methods/fuzzing exposure.

• Experience with cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP), containerization, infra as code, and event/data pipelines (Kafka/Pub Sub).

• Practical knowledge of KYC/AML/Travel Rule, sanctions screening, and blockchain analytics tooling.

Nice to Have

• Experience with interoperability (IBC, Axelar, Wormhole, Layer Zero) and rollups (OP Stack, Arbitrum, zk).

• Knowledge of market microstructure, MEV dynamics, gas strategies, simulation/backtesting.

• Payment rails, on/off-ramps, fiat treasury ops, reconciliation with ledgers/ERP.

• Certifications: CFA/FMI (for treasury), CAMS, CISM/CISSP, CKA, or Ethereum Developer credentials.