What you will own

Technology strategy and architecture

• Own Zofeur's technical vision, architecture and engineering roadmap.
• Ensure the platform can support increasing transaction volumes, geographic expansion and new product lines.
• Review the current cloud, backend, mobile, data and integration architecture and establish clear technical standards.
• Prioritise technical debt according to customer, operational and commercial impact.
• Make pragmatic build-versus-buy, modernisation and platform investment decisions.
• Improve systems incrementally while replacing components where evidence clearly justifies it.

Engineering organisation

• Assess the existing engineering organisation and develop a clear capability and succession plan.
• Build an internal technology organisation while managing a controlled hybrid delivery model.
• Recruit, coach and retain high-quality engineering leaders and individual contributors.
• Establish clear ownership across backend, mobile, QA, infrastructure, security, data and AI engineering.
• Eliminate critical individual dependencies and create an accountable, transparent engineering culture.

Delivery, reliability and quality

• Improve engineering velocity without compromising platform stability.
• Establish measurable standards for release frequency, lead time, defect rate, availability and incident recovery.
• Strengthen QA automation across critical customer, chauffeur, payment, subscription, B2B and operational workflows.
• Implement effective code review, testing, deployment, rollback, observability and incident-response practices.
• Improve technical documentation and engineer onboarding.

AI-first engineering and mobility intelligence

• Establish AI-native development practices across coding, testing, review, documentation, debugging and internal tooling.
• Select and govern AI development tools with appropriate security, privacy and quality controls.
• Build capability in data engineering, AI engineering and MLOps.
• Partner with Product and Operations to convert high-value AI opportunities into reliable production systems.
• Lead initial priorities including automated software engineering and QA, ETA and demand forecasting, and pricing and supply planning.

Cloud, security and governance

• Own AWS and GCP architecture, availability, security and cost management.
• Establish strong identity, access, secrets and production-control policies.
• Ensure Zofeur maintains complete control over source code, infrastructure and critical third-party systems.
• Strengthen cybersecurity, privacy, business continuity and disaster recovery.
• Prepare the technology organisation for enterprise diligence, regional expansion and future compliance requirements.

Executive leadership

• Act as a strategic partner to the Founder and CEO and challenge priorities constructively.
• Translate company objectives into credible technology plans, budgets, trade-offs and timelines.
• Represent technology with the board, investors, strategic partners and enterprise customers.
• Build a culture of accountability, urgency, transparency and continuous improvement.

What success looks like

• Technology ownership has moved from founder-led decision-making to a clear, CTO-led operating model.
• Zofeur has a strong internal engineering core supported by carefully governed external capacity.
• Critical systems and responsibilities have documented owners and no material single-person dependencies.
• Release speed, reliability, defect rates and incident recovery are measured and materially improving.
• AI is embedded in everyday engineering delivery and selected mobility-intelligence use cases are operating in production.
• The technology organisation can support GCC expansion without proportionally increasing complexity or headcount.

Candidate profile

The successful candidate will likely bring:

• Significant software engineering and technology leadership experience, typically 12 or more years, with evidence valued above tenure.
• Experience leading and scaling multidisciplinary engineering organisations.
• Strong architecture capability across cloud, backend, mobile, data and APIs.
• Experience with high-volume transactional, marketplace, logistics, mobility, delivery, fintech or consumer platforms.
• Direct exposure to real-time systems, location data, payments or operational platforms.
• Experience managing distributed internal teams and outsourced engineering partners.
• A record of recruiting, assessing and upgrading engineering talent.
• Practical experience implementing AI-assisted software development and production AI systems.
• Strong knowledge of QA automation, DevOps, observability, security and incident management.
• Commercial judgement and the ability to connect technical decisions to customer and business outcomes.
• The confidence and communication skills to work directly with founders and boards.
• Experience with PHP/Laravel, Swift, Kotlin, AWS, GCP, Redshift or mobility technology is advantageous but not mandatory. A previous CTO title is not required.

The working style we value

• Technically hands-on without becoming the team's bottleneck.
• Decisive, calm and low-ego, particularly during incidents and organisational change.
• Pragmatic about architecture and resistant to unnecessary rewrites or fashionable complexity.
• Comfortable challenging the CEO and leadership team, while remaining accountable for execution.
• Able to communicate difficult technical trade-offs in clear commercial language.
• Motivated by measurable customer and business outcomes rather than technology for its own sake.

Location and package

This is a full-time, office-based position in Dubai. Zofeur offers a competitive executive package, meaningful equity participation and the opportunity to shape the technology foundation of a category-defining regional mobility company.

Important

This role is designed for a builder. Candidates seeking a remote, advisory or delegation-only CTO position will not be a fit.