Head of Software Engineering

Company Overview  

Zodia Custody is an institution-first digital assets platform backed by Standard Chartered, in association with Northern Trust, SBI Holdings, National Australia Bank, and Emirates NBD. Through the combination of its wallet, yield and settlement solutions, Zodia Custody enables institutional investors around the globe to realize the full potential of the digital assets future.  

Our Vision 

We remove compromise. Bringing together giants of the traditional banking and digital asset worlds – leaders in emerging markets, technology and global custody – ensures everything we do is born institution-first. 

Only we blend a forensic insight of institutions with client-focused innovation, applying the framework of governance that frees them to fearlessly embrace the digital asset future. 

Our Mission 

However the needs of digital asset services evolve, and however fast, we ensure our solutions are institution-ready. Wherever our clients are on their digital asset journey, we ensure custody is compromise-free.  

Delivered with care, insight and simplicity. Familiar to the way they work. Empowering them to navigate established or new digital asset markets with ease and total assurance. 

 What you’ll do:  

• Lead and scale the software engineering organisation, including recruitment, mentoring, and professional development of engineers. 

• Define and implement the engineering strategy, technical roadmap, and modern, best practices to support business growth in the era of AI  

• Oversee the full, modernized software development lifecycle (SDLC), including architecture, coding, testing, deployment, and support. 

• Drive the development of secure, high-availability, and high-performance digital asset wallet platform solutions tailored to wallets, yield opportunities, trading and more.  

• Collaborate with Product and the business to align technical delivery with client needs and regulatory requirements 

• Champion modern engineering practices such as CI/CD, DevSecOps, cloud-native architectures, and automated testing. 

• Establish and enforce robust software engineering governance, including coding standards, documentation, and peer review. 

• Ensure systems are designed and maintained with security, scalability, and operational resilience as core principles. 

• Manage technology budgets and vendor relationships, including third-party integrations and security partners. 
• Stay at the forefront of emerging technologies in blockchain, digital assets, and cybersecurity, advising the executive team on innovation opportunities. 
• Act as a senior technology leader, representing Engineering to key stakeholders. 

Requirements

Digital Assets Experience:  

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years in leadership roles (Head of Engineering, Director of Engineering, or equivalent).  

• Direct practical experience in institutional digital asset platforms and a track record of building and scaling secure, mission-critical platforms in financial services and digital assets. 

• Deep technical expertise in distributed systems, cryptography, APIs, cloud-native development, and enterprise-grade architecture. 

• Strong understanding of blockchain technologies, custody models, key management, and digital asset security protocols. 

Technical Experience:  

• Experience designing/leading a team that is API-forward and has built distributed scalable, systems using OpenJDK, Gradle, Intellij, Postgresql, JSON, JUnit, Quartz, JWT, JOOQ, Liquibase, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS Cloud Stack, Confluent and more.  

• Hands-on experience with modern engineering tools and practices (e.g., Kubernetes, microservices, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, DevSecOps). 

• Proven expertise in building RESTful services and understanding of concurrent, multi-threaded, distributed application environments. 

• Practical experience leveraging AI-tooling to increase programming productivity, efficiency and accuracy 

• Experience operating in regulated environments with audit, security, and compliance requirements 

• Deep expertise in cloud‑native, event‑driven architectures 

Teamwork & Collaboration:  

• Strong leadership and team-building skills, with the ability to inspire, coach, and grow high-performing engineering teams. 

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills working across teams to deliver high-value products  

• Strategic mindset with the ability to balance innovation, delivery, and operational excellence. 

Benefits

We are a friendly team, with monthly socials and seasonal celebrations as well as offering a range of fantastic benefits including:

• Competitive employer contribution pension scheme
• Private health care
• Critical Illness cover
• Life Insurance
• Flexible bank holidays (can chose whether to work on bank holidays and use the leave elsewhere in the year)