Senior Director of Engineering
Digital Asset · Zurich, Switzerland · 2mo ago
About Digital Asset & the Canton Network
Digital Asset builds the technologies that are reshaping the foundations of financial markets. Our mission is to create the world’s most trusted, privacy-enabled, and interoperable digital infrastructure for global finance.
At the heart of this mission is the Canton Network - the blockchain purpose-built for institutional finance. Uniquely combining privacy, compliance, and scalability, Canton enables real-time, secure settlement across multiple asset classes. Governed by the Canton Foundation with participation from leading financial institutions, it is the proven link between the promise of blockchain and the power of global finance.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York City, with offices in London, Zurich, Budapest, Hong Kong, and Sydney— we are on a mission to transform finance— and that transformation is now playing out rapidly on the Canton Network.
If you’re interested in playing a crucial role at the intersection of traditional and crypto-capital markets and want to help bring the next trillion dollars of finance on-chain, join us.
About the role:
Reporting to the CTO, the Senior Director of Engineering serves as the operational heart and delivery driver of our engineering organization. While our CTO focuses on the technical soul, core architecture, and long-term innovation, you will be responsible for building and running the high-performance engine that turns that vision into reality. As the team is led out of Zurich, Switzerland, we need you to be there too.
This is a role for a "Leader of Leaders" who thrives on operational excellence. You will manage the end-to-end delivery machine, scale a world-class global team, and ensure that our engineering processes are as robust and reliable as the financial systems we are building. You will partner closely with the CTO (Technical Strategy) and the CPO (Product Market Fit) to ensure Digital Asset continues to build the industry standard for Real World Assets.
You will inherit a capable but fast-growing engineering organization and will be expected to bring process rigor, clear delivery visibility, and a scalable talent framework within your first year.
Responsibilities:
Managing the Delivery Process
- Execution & Planning: Own and operate the engineering planning and delivery process, ensuring that priorities are agreed among the main stakeholders (PM, CTO, directors, team leads, and other stakeholders) and translated into realistic, well-defined, and trackable delivery plans.
- Release and Quality Management: Ensuring high-quality software reaches the market predictably.
- Services and Infrastructure: Ensure availability and reliability of our frontend and backend service offerings to the market.
- Operational Reporting: Organise and manage the regular reporting process to provide transparency and keep all stakeholders informed.
- Risk & Resolution: Identify, communicate, and resolve risks before they impact delivery dates, clients, or opportunities.
Managing People and Talent
- Scaling the Team: Drive the hiring strategy and execution to attract top-tier global talent across our engineering hubs.
- Career Development: Define and manage the frameworks for career advancement, reviews, promotions, and compensation adjustments.
- Mentoring & Culture: Operationalize the engineering values and architectural principles defined by the CTO into daily behaviors, team norms, and leadership practices. Coach Engineering Managers and Directors to become better leaders and build a high-accountability, collaborative environment.
- Conflict Resolution: Proactively identify and resolve people problems and team dynamics to maintain a healthy, collaborative, and high-accountability environment.
Infrastructure, Security & Budget
- Engineering Infrastructure: Supervise the engineering tools and infrastructure to ensure they are efficient, consistent, and cost-effective.
- Financial Stewardship: Own the engineering budget, including cloud costs, travel, salaries, and external vendor contracts.
- Security Posture: Ensure ongoing commitment to operational security and professionalism, maintaining a credible and reliable posture for the world’s largest financial institutions.
What We're Looking For:
- Proven Leadership: 12+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 5+ years in a senior leadership role (Director, Senior Director, VP level, or CTO) managing multi-disciplinary, global teams of 50+.
- Operational Rigor: A track record of professionalizing and building efficient engineering organizations, implementing consistent planning processes, and delivering complex, multi-stakeholder projects on time.
- Technical Background: You have deep technical roots and the credibility to engage as a peer with world-class engineers and architects, while operating primarily at the organisational and delivery level. Familiarity with functional programming, distributed systems, or critical financial software is a major plus.
- High-Stakes Environment Credibility: Demonstrated experience delivering software in regulated, security-sensitive, or mission-critical environments — with the operational judgment to maintain reliability and compliance standards expected by Tier-1 financial institutions.
- Communication: Exceptional ability to communicate complex delivery status and risks to both technical and non-technical stakeholders (including Board/Investors).
- Strategic Partnership: Experience partnering effectively with a visionary CTO and a commercial CPO to balance technical debt, innovation, and market speed.
- Education: Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field; or equivalent demonstrable experience.
- Location: Based in Zurich, Switzerland.
#LI-Hybrid
At Digital Asset, we are committed to compensation structures that reward impact consistently across our global teams. We support our people at every stage of life with comprehensive, family-forward benefits and flexible working models designed to help you do your best work.
Benefits We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the well-being of our team members. Health and insurance benefits vary by region to ensure local relevance and compliance, and may include medical, dental, and vision coverage.
Equal Opportunity Employer Digital Asset is an equal opportunity employer committed. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, citizenship status, veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.
Employment Eligibility If and as required by applicable law, all persons hired to work at Digital Asset will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the location for which they have an offer to work and to complete the necessary employment eligibility verification documents upon hire.
Accommodations Applicants with disabilities who require accommodation during the application or interview process should contact talent@digitalasset.com.
California Privacy Act (CCPA) If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents linked here.