Founding CTO / Engineering Cofounder

About Qelliptic

Qelliptic is an early-stage venture in formation, building infrastructure for cross-network wholesale settlement based on portable, post-quantum signed finality certificates that can be independently verified across systems and institutions.

The protocol and core certificate logic already exist. The next step is to build the engineering layer that makes the system operational, reliable, auditable, and deployable.

This is a rare opportunity for someone who is comfortable standing between mathematics and production systems: not a pure researcher, and not a generic engineering manager, but a technical builder who can turn deep protocol structure into real infrastructure.

About the Role

We are looking for a Founding CTO / Engineering Cofounder to own the engineering path from protocol architecture to production readiness.

Location: Israel or Remote. Exceptional candidates globally considered. Strong overlap with Israel/EMEA time zones preferred. Periodic in-person meetings may be needed.

Responsibilities

• end-to-end system architecture
• reliability, observability, and operational design
• deployment strategy and production discipline
• security posture and audit readiness
• hiring and shaping the initial engineering team
• designing and delivering live or live-like integrations

Qualifications

The ideal candidate does not need to come from exactly one background, but should strongly overlap with at least one of these domains:

• distributed systems and backend infrastructure
• security-critical or high-assurance engineering
• cryptography-heavy product engineering
• fintech / settlement / capital-markets infrastructure
• protocol or validator systems
• audited or compliance-sensitive systems

More formally, the target profile is: candidate fit = systems depth + security maturity + execution ability + intellectual range.

Required Skills

• strong technical ownership in backend or distributed systems
• ability to make architecture real, not only discuss it
• good instincts around reliability, release process, incident handling, and operational risk
• comfort working with mathematically deep product foundations
• enough intellectual patience to preserve what is unique in the system rather than flatten it into generic infrastructure
• enough pragmatism to ship

Preferred Skills

What matters most you should bring:

• strong technical ownership in backend or distributed systems
• ability to make architecture real, not only discuss it
• good instincts around reliability, release process, incident handling, and operational risk
• comfort working with mathematically deep product foundations
• enough intellectual patience to preserve what is unique in the system rather than flatten it into generic infrastructure
• enough pragmatism to ship

Pay range and compensation package

Compensation depends on whether the role is structured as: a true engineering cofounder, or a founding CTO role with more conventional executive structure. In either case, equity participation would be meaningful and aligned with: commitment + scope + stage.

Specific numbers are better discussed privately.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Please reach out directly with: a short note on relevant background, links or examples of systems you have built or led, and a brief explanation of why this role fits you. What matters here is not title inflation. It is demonstrated ability to build serious systems.