Director of Technology (CTO)

About Kafaa Capital

Kafaa Capital, a CMA-licensed investment platform in Saudi Arabia, specializes in Shariah-compliant sukuk-based investment and financing solutions. Headquartered in Riyadh, the company is developing next-generation digital investment infrastructure with a focus on transparency, compliance, and innovation.

Director of Technology (CTO) Role

Kafaa Capital is seeking a Director of Technology, equivalent to a Chief Technology Officer (CTO), to lead the technology strategy, architecture, and engineering execution. This full-time role, based in Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is critical for ensuring the platform remains scalable, secure, and reliable.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute the technology strategy, system architecture, and engineering standards across backend, web, mobile, and data integrations.
• Lead system modernization, refactoring, performance optimization, and establish robust software engineering practices.
• Translate business goals into actionable technical roadmaps, balancing new feature delivery, technical debt, and security priorities.
• Lead end-to-end technical delivery of core platform initiatives, including onboarding, KYC, payment flows, open banking, and investment lifecycles.
• Own cloud infrastructure, environments, CI/CD pipelines, disaster recovery, and operational performance across development and production.
• Establish observability, logging, and incident response standards to ensure high platform availability and reliability.
• Own technical readiness and compliance for CMA cybersecurity guidelines, NCA Essential Cybersecurity Controls, PDPL, and AML/KYC operational controls.
• Manage annual external penetration testing, vulnerability remediation, third-party vendor risks, and audit evidence packs.
• Lead technical integrations with banks, payment gateways, identity verification providers, and financial market infrastructure.
• Build, mentor, and lead the internal engineering team, while managing external contract delivery partners to maintain high performance standards.

Required Experience and Competencies

Candidates should possess 5-10 years of relevant experience. The role requires specific competencies to succeed in a dynamic environment.

• Ownership mindset and high accountability with the ability to execute under ambiguity.
• Exceptional communication skills, capable of bridging technical details for non-technical executive stakeholders.
• Systems thinking, pragmatic decision-making, and risk-based prioritization.

Location and Work Type

This is a full-time position located in Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The salary for this role will be disclosed during the hiring process.