We are an early stage fintech startup building a cross-border lending marketplace connecting emerging-market financial institutions (seeking foreign-currency funding) with lenders in developed markets. Think of us as connecting Tier 1/2 banks in Africa/Asia with mid Tier lenders in the UK and Europe and China.

We are pre-revenue, validating product-market fit with anchor users, and now ready to build the MVP. This is a ground-floor opportunity to shape the technical foundation of a marketplace that could scale to billions in annual deal flow.

LOCATION:
United Kingdom (Remote, flexible hours)

THE ROLE

We need an experienced senior technologist to design the core architecture of our marketplace platform and ensure a junior/mid-level UK engineer can execute the MVP independently.

You will own six concrete deliverables over 12 weeks:

• Technical architecture document – technology stack, system design, rationale
• Development framework – Git repo, CI/CD, coding standards, environment setup
• Data models & APIs – entity design, marketplace workflows, third-party integrations
• Security & compliance baseline – GDPR, KYC/AML, encryption, audit logging
• Code reviews & iteration – bi-weekly syncs with UK engineer, unblock decisions
• Hand-off documentation – runbook, architecture decisions, next steps

Not full-time leadership or hands-on coding. Yes architectural validation, decision support, and ensuring the UK engineer stays on the right path.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Essential

• 10+ years professional software engineering experience
• You have personally built back-end services (Node/Python/Java/C#) and modern front ends (React/Vue)
• Comfortable designing systems from scratch and owning technical decisions
• UK-based, available for video calls during UK hours
• Able to work asynchronously and communicate clearly in writing

Highly desirable

• Fintech or banking platform experience
• Understanding of marketplace/B2B platform architecture
• Familiarity with KYC/AML, data protection, and financial-services compliance
• Startup experience – pragmatic, MVP-focused thinking
• Comfort with ambiguity and rapid iteration

Nice to have

• Experience with distributed or offshore teams
• Azure/ AWS or cloud infrastructure knowledge

WHO THIS SUITS

You're likely:

• Between full-time roles and want a meaningful project
• Semi-retired and interested in fintech/emerging markets
• A fractional/advisory consultant looking for a case study
• Someone who values the mission and learning opportunity over maximum hourly rate

If you're seeking traditional consulting rates (£80+/hour), this isn't the right fit. If you want to shape the technical direction of an ambitious startup and work with a capable UK engineer, we'd love to hear from you.

COMPENSATION

£200 per week, paid monthly | Fixed 3-month contract | ~120 hours total

No equity in this engagement. If it leads to ongoing CTO-level advisory, we will discuss equity then.

Tell us:

• Your background: 3–4 highlights from your software engineering career
• Why you're interested: What appeals about this project
• Fintech/marketplace experience: Any relevant examples
• Availability: Can you commit ~10 hours/week and possible start date.

Pay: £200.00 per week

Work Location: Remote