Phase-0 CTO

Driftly is building the default infrastructure for frictionless mobility payments.

We believe paying for mobility - fuel - is still unnecessarily fragmented, card-based, and operationally heavy. Driftly exists to remove that friction entirely.

At our core, Driftly is about making physical-world transactions disappear into software.

No cards.

No terminals.

No manual steps.

Just vehicles, identity, and systems that work reliably in the background.

Phase-0 CTO

As Phase-0 CTO, you will be responsible for turning an idea into a working Proof of Concept, from a blank page.

There is:

• no existing engineering team

• no legacy codebase

• no finished architecture

• no guaranteed salary at the start

What there is:

• a clear problem

• early customer interest

• a founder who owns product & business

• and the opportunity to shape the technical foundation end-to-end

You will personally design, build, and iterate on the initial POC.

Only after validation will we scale the team and formalize structures.

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What You Will Do

• Own the entire technical direction from day one

• Design the system architecture under real-world constraints

• Build the POC yourself (hands-on coding is non-negotiable)

• Make pragmatic trade-offs between speed, quality, and future scale

• Validate assumptions through working software, not decks

• Lay the foundations for future scalability, security, and compliance

• Work closely with the founder to translate product vision into reality

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What This Role Is Not

• Not an advisory role

• Not a people-management role (yet)

• Not a consulting engagement

• Not a \"CTO in name only\" position

• Not suitable if you need immediate cash compensation

If you're looking for:

• a safe transition

• a part-time experiment

• a side project

• or a fully staffed team from day one

this role is NOT a fit.

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Who You Are

You likely:

• Are a deeply hands-on technical builder

• Have built systems from scratch before

• Are comfortable working with ambiguity and incomplete information

• Enjoy making hard architectural decisions early

• Understand that early startups are messy by nature

• Think in systems, but act pragmatically

• Are willing to take founder-level risk for founder-level upside

Backgrounds that tend to fit well:

• Technical co-founders

• Former CTOs who miss building

• Senior engineers who want real ownership

• Builders with experience in infrastructure, platforms, or complex systems

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Compensation & Commitment (Very Important)

• Cash compensation is deferred until revenue or funding

• This requires real commitment, not spare cycles

• The upside is founder-level ownership and influence

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Why This Might Be Worth It

• You get to build the core, not inherit it

• You shape the product, architecture, and culture from day one

• You work directly with the founder, no layers

• You're not optimizing someone else's decisions — you're making them

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How to Apply

If you apply, expect an early conversation focused on:

• hands-on building

• risk tolerance

• commitment level

• and whether you want to be in Phase-0 again

We prefer honest \"no's\" over polite \"maybe's\".

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Final note

If reading this makes you uncomfortable — that's a signal.

If reading this makes you lean forward — we should talk.