Head of Engineering - Crypto BU

Your application and all hiring communication for this role run through the Techy Recruiter team. Head of Engineering – Crypto Business Unit About Ajaib Ajaib is one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing fintech companies, transforming how millions of Indonesians invest. Founded in 2019, Ajaib is a leading investment platform offering stock trading, mutual funds, and digital asset investment products through a seamless, mobile-first experience. Trusted by over 3 million customers and backed by renowned investors (including DST Global, Horizons Ventures, and Alpha JWC Ventures), Ajaib is Indonesia’s first investment fintech unicorn. Our mission is to democratize investing and build financial inclusion through technology, making investing accessible, affordable, and intuitive for everyone. As we continue to scale our Crypto business, we are seeking an exceptional Head of Engineering to lead one of our most strategic engineering organizations and help shape the future of digital asset investing in Southeast Asia. Position: Head of Engineering – Crypto Location: Remote (MENA, Poland, UAE, Egypt, and other eligible locations) Travel: Quarterly travel to Jakarta (1-3 weeks per quarter, company-sponsored) Reporting To: VP of Engineering Employment Type: Full-Time The Opportunity We are looking for an experienced Head of Engineering to lead the engineering organization responsible for Ajaib’s Crypto business. In this pivotal role, you will oversee multiple engineering teams, drive technical excellence, scale high-availability distributed systems, and collaborate with Product, Business, and Executive stakeholders to deliver innovative products that serve millions of customers. You’ll combine strategic leadership with hands-on operational management, building high-performing teams, establishing engineering best practices, and ensuring the reliability, security, and scalability of mission-critical fintech platforms. Key Responsibilities Engineering Leadership Lead and scale multiple engineering teams responsible for backend systems and platform services supporting Ajaib’s Crypto business. Define and execute the engineering strategy aligned with company and business objectives. Drive architectural decisions and ensure engineering teams deliver secure, scalable, and resilient systems. Champion engineering excellence across software design, development, deployment, and production operations. Establish and promote best practices in reliability, observability, performance optimization, security, and incident management. People Leadership Build, mentor, and develop high-performing engineering managers and senior engineers. Create a culture of accountability, ownership, continuous learning, and collaboration. Set clear performance expectations, providing regular coaching, feedback, and career development support. Lead workforce planning and organizational design to support rapid business growth. Technical Strategy & Architecture Provide hands-on architectural guidance for distributed systems, microservices, cloud infrastructure, and event-driven architectures. Review critical technical designs and ensure alignment with long-term platform strategy. Drive modernization initiatives that enhance scalability, performance, and developer productivity. Partner with platform, DevOps, QA, and frontend teams to deliver seamless customer experiences. Stakeholder Management Collaborate with Product, Design, Data, Compliance, and Business leaders to define priorities and execute strategic initiatives. Manage expectations, dependencies, risks, and trade-offs across multiple teams and stakeholders. Act as a trusted advisor to senior leadership on engineering and technology decisions. Delivery & Execution Own engineering execution and delivery outcomes across the Crypto business. Ensure teams maintain predictable delivery while balancing speed, quality, and technical debt. Drive continuous improvement of engineering processes, planning, and operational excellence. Support hiring efforts and resource allocation to meet business objectives. What Success Looks Like Within your first 6-12 months, you will: Establish strong partnerships across Product, Business, and Engineering leadership. Strengthen engineering processes and delivery predictability across the Crypto organization. Improve platform reliability, scalability, and operational excellence. Develop and retain top engineering talent and build a strong leadership bench. Deliver strategic initiatives supporting Ajaib’s continued growth. Requirements Experience 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant exposure to large-scale distributed systems. 5+ years of engineering leadership experience managing engineering managers and senior technical teams. Proven experience leading multiple engineering teams in high-growth technology organizations. Strong background in building and operating large-scale consumer-facing platforms. Experience in fintech, payments, lending, wealth management, investments, crypto, or other regulated financial services environments (highly preferred). Experience working in fast-paced, product-led organizations serving millions of users. Technical Expertise Strong expertise in Java and/or Golang. Deep understanding of distributed systems, microservices, cloud-native architectures, and event-driven systems. Experience with SQL databases, caching technologies, messaging systems, and high-traffic backend services. Strong knowledge of reliability engineering, observability, security, and performance optimization. Familiarity with modern cloud platforms and DevOps practices. Leadership Competencies Exceptional people leadership and coaching capabilities. Strong strategic thinking and organizational leadership skills. Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills. Ability to influence at all levels of the organization. Strong decision-making abilities in complex and ambiguous environments. Fluent English communication skills, both written and verbal. Preferred Qualifications Experience within cryptocurrency exchanges, digital asset platforms, trading systems, or investment fintech companies. Experience leading globally distributed teams. Experience scaling engineering organizations through periods of rapid growth. Track record of delivering mission-critical platforms with high availability and security requirements. Prior experience managing organizations of 20+ engineers across multiple functions. Why Join Ajaib? Join one of Southeast Asia’s most successful fintech unicorns. Shape the future of digital investing and cryptocurrency products for millions of users. Lead a high-impact engineering organization with significant influence on business outcomes. Work alongside world-class engineering and product leaders. Competitive compensation package including performance bonus and potential equity participation. International health insurance coverage. Opportunity to collaborate with teams across multiple countries and travel regularly to Jakarta. Interview Process Screening Interview with Techy Recruiter HR & Culture Interview with People Team (30 minutes) Technical Case Study (Take-home) Live Coding Interview (60 minutes) System Design Interview with Head of Platform Leadership & Technical Interview with current Head of Engineering (Crypto) Final Executive Interview (onsite in Jakarta) with VP of Engineering and C-level leadership team. About Techy Recruiter Techy Recruiter is a boutique hiring partner for startups and scaleups across Europe and the Gulf. We run searches end to end and care about a clear, fair process for every person who applies. Equal opportunity We assess people on merit. All applicants are welcome regardless of background, and we do not discriminate on any basis protected by law. Your data We treat your information as confidential and use it only for this hiring process.