Priority application deadline: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Early applications are heavily encouraged.
We’re growing at incredible speed, and expect to hit $1B in revenue in 2026 with significant growth forecast for 2027. We’re hiring a Chief Technology Officer to lead the building and rebuilding of the technology, systems and ways of working that will enable a sustained $5B+ p/a operation.
You will build software that safely and securely moves billions of dollars to millions of vulnerable people in some of the poorest and highest need parts of the world. This will require applying excellent engineering, team building and organizational judgment to complex, high-stakes operations: identity and fraud management, machine learning on large but imperfect datasets (cell phone data, satellite imagery, government registries), mobile money integrations, low-connectivity environments, rapidly evolving requirements all in diverse regulatory environments and country contexts. You’ll need to keep our legacy technology stack stable and performant, while in parallel building new systems from the ground up for our next level of scale.
You will lead engineering, data, security and enterprise technology – with a small, mighty and rapidly growing engineering team of ~15, and the expectation that this can at least double to ~30 in the next 12 months if you want it to. You’ll report to a CEO with deep experience running technology companies, and partner with our VP Product.
This role is remote, with working hours between US Eastern Time and East African Time, and some preference for candidates in our office hubs of New York, London, or Nairobi.
What we’re looking for:
- An exceptional hirer, manager and organizer of technical talent. Proven record identifying, hiring, developing and retaining excellent engineers and engineering leaders, and creating team processes that consistently deliver software with quality and velocity.
- Deep technical judgment, applied close to the work. You can evaluate major designs, pressure-test architecture and build-vs-buy decisions, and recognize when a team is heading the wrong way, without becoming the primary implementer. Low-ego: you’ll investigate a problem yourself when that’s what the situation requires.
- Business judgment and decisiveness under ambiguity. You’re not just a technical leader, you’re also a business executive. You understand the business, are a strong cross-functional partner, and have a history of good judgment when navigating tradeoffs of long vs. short term, speed, reliability, security, flexibility, cost, technical quality, and user impact.
- AI first. You have a point of view on where AI meaningfully changes engineering productivity and organizational capability, and you’ve moved a team from experimentation to real, measured use. You can set the tools, culture, goals, and guardrails that leverage the opportunities and mitigate the risks of an AI first engineering culture.
- Embody and set an example for GD values. We take our values incredibly seriously, and expect our leaders to embody, nurture, and promote them in the way they work and the teams they build.
- Advantages, not requirements. Experience in an operationally complex or regulated domain (fintech, payments, humanitarian response, global development); systems involving financial controls, fraud risk, identity, or sensitive recipient data; operating across multiple countries, particularly lower-income or infrastructure-constrained ones; leading both modern product engineering and enterprise technology.
What you’ll do
- Define our technology vision and target stack. Own the technical strategy for technology-first delivery at $5B+/year: architecture, platforms, build-vs-buy, and what we retire. Work with executive, product, finance, risk, and data leaders to turn program and product strategy into a sequenced, credible portfolio of technical investments.
- Balance a demanding portfolio. You'll manage six workstreams that all matter and won't all move at once: (1) building our new cash delivery stack (remote-first verification, fraud prevention, massive volume) (2) stabilizing our legacy stack until switchover, then managing the migration; (3) donor-facing fundraising products; (4) our global emergency cash system (and eventual white-labelling of that product); (5) enterprise technology; (6) internal tooling, platform, and cybersecurity. Deciding sequencing and staffing across these (and saying "not yet" credibly) is the job.
- Build and grow an exceptional technology organization. Recruit outstanding engineering and technology talent, design the org GiveDirectly needs at its next stage of scale (engineering, product, data, security, infrastructure, enterprise systems), and create the accountability, decision rights, and career paths to sustain high talent density. Grow the engineering team from 15 to ~30 with a lean but durable management structure.
- Own the technical direction and quality bar. Guide consequential decisions on integrations, data, security, reliability, and technical debt. Ensure our systems can safely support a major increase in transaction volume, geographic reach, and organizational dependence on technology. Set a pragmatic quality bar appropriate to high-stakes financial delivery while preserving speed.
- Lead across organizational boundaries. Serve as a member of GiveDirectly’s executive team, reporting to the CEO and bringing technology into major strategic and operating decisions. Help non-technical leaders understand technical constraints and costs, build credibility with country and functional leaders by understanding their realities, and force clarity when priorities, ownership, or tradeoffs are ambiguous.
- Travel. Approximately 4–6 trips per year, including visits to GiveDirectly countries of operation.
Compensation
At GiveDirectly, we strive to pay our employees generously and equitably. We use an accredited third party salary aggregator to calculate what we believe to be competitive pay based on role, location, and cost of living. We also have a no negotiation policy so pay is consistent across comparable roles.
Total Compensation (US) of $366,000 – $518,000 comprised of:
- Base Salary: $300,000 – $375,000
- Bonus: $45,000-$112,000 (bonus is % based and decided based on org-wide performance, we will share full methodology during the hiring process)
- Annual Benefits Stipend: ~$21,000
Total Compensation (UK) of £225,000 – £317,000 comprised of:
- Base Salary: £193,400 – £241,700
- Bonus: £29,000 – £72,500 (bonus is % based and decided based on org-wide performance, we will share full methodology during the hiring process)
- Annual Benefits Stipend: £2,760
Total Compensation (Kenya) of $333,000 – $467,000 comprised of:
- Base Salary: $282,500 – $353,100
- Bonus: $42,000 – $106,000 (bonus is % based and decided based on org-wide performance, we will share full methodology during the hiring process)
- Annual Benefits Stipend: $8,453
If you are not based in one of the countries listed above, we will share an estimated salary benchmark for the country you are based in during the hiring process.
