Senior Engineering Manager, Fortary Platform

About the role

In this pivotal leadership role, you will be instrumental in establishing the engineering foundation of Ava Labs' institutional digital asset platform, Fortary. You will own the strategic direction and execution of critical financial infrastructure, including custody, trading, and lending capabilities. Your leadership will directly shape the technical roadmap and operational maturity of the engineering teams responsible for secure, institutional-grade Web3 services. You will architect and guide the systems that underpin the trust and reliability required by regulated institutions. This position is central to transforming Fortary from an ambitious vision into a robust, production-ready reality. You will operate at the intersection of cutting-edge cryptography and stringent financial compliance. Your decisions will have a direct impact on the security, scalability, and reputation of the platform.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Orchestrate and supervise multiple cross-functional engineering teams dedicated to Fortary's custody solutions, transaction processing, key management, wallet services, and blockchain integrations.
• Architect the long-term technical vision for the distributed MPC custody system, defining its resilience, governance models, and transaction control frameworks.
• Partner closely with Product, Security, Business Development, and executive leadership to align engineering strategies with market demands, regulatory landscapes, and overarching business goals.
• Drive the development and delivery of both a managed platform service and a licensed software product, ensuring each meets its distinct market and technical requirements.
• Institutionalize engineering processes and standards that meet the rigorous security, compliance, and governance benchmarks necessary for Fortary's evolution into a chartered institution.
• Serve as the primary technical leader during major system outages, security breaches, and complex key management incidents, guiding resolution and post-mortem analysis.
• Build, grow, and mentor a leadership pipeline by recruiting, developing, and coaching engineering managers and senior individual contributors.
• Champion the strategic adoption and integration of AI tools to streamline engineering workflows, enhance productivity, and improve system reliability.
• Translate complex technical architectures and trade-offs into clear, actionable insights for executives, clients, auditors, and regulatory authorities.
• Ensure all engineering deliverables adhere to a framework of security-first design, proactive risk management, and continuous operational improvement.

Requirements

• Possess a minimum of 10 years of professional software development experience, with at least 5 years in a leadership role managing teams that have successfully delivered secure, production-scale distributed systems.
• Demonstrate a proven track record of owning and delivering large-scale, security-critical platforms from initial architectural design through full operational deployment and maintenance.
• Exhibit profound and practical knowledge of modern cryptography and secure key management, with hands-on experience implementing MPC, threshold signatures, TEEs, and HSMs.
• Show extensive experience in building cloud-native architectures using Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipelines, and advanced observability tools, with security and resilience as core design principles.
• Have a strong familiarity with financial industry compliance standards, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and NIST, as well as a working knowledge of AML/KYC practices and the regulatory bodies such as the SEC, CFTC, OCC, and MiCA.
• Bring direct experience with the full lifecycle of digital asset infrastructure components, encompassing custody, trading, staking, treasury management, and blockchain settlement layers.
• Demonstrate the ability to communicate highly technical concepts with precision and credibility to diverse audiences, including executives, clients, external auditors, and financial regulators.
• Show a history of making sound technical decisions in ambiguous environments while balancing security, scalability, and time-to-market pressures.
• Exhibit strong ownership mentality, where you take complete responsibility for your team's outcomes and drive issues to resolution.
• Possess excellent written and verbal communication skills to ensure alignment and transparency across all levels of the organization.

Nice to have

• Prior experience scaling an engineering organization specifically in preparation for achieving chartered or licensed financial entity status.
• Direct experience delivering both managed service offerings and licensed software products within a regulated environment.

Practical notes

• This role is open to candidates globally.
• Ava Labs is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. All employment decisions are based on qualifications, merit, and business needs.