Technical Co-Founder, CTO - Consumer Marketplace

We are partnering with a newly established, high-potential marketplace startup in the UAE to build their founding team.

At Uplift, we work closely with our clients not only to fill roles but to shape the core teams that will define their success. These positions are part of the initial leadership layer, offering a rare opportunity to join at an early stage and directly influence how the business, product, and customer experience are built from the ground up.

If you enjoy fast-paced environments, high ownership, and turning ideas into reality, this could be a very exciting opportunity to be part of something early and impactful.

A DIFC-incorporated, UAE-based consumer marketplace is looking for a technologist — someone who thinks like a designer, builds like an engineer, and obsesses over experience and users. You will be the third co-founder, the first engineer, and the person who decides how the platform feels as much as how it works. The platform is prelaunch, well-structured, and targeting a 2026 go-live.

What Will You Own

1. Platform Architecture & Technical Ownership

• Own the full technical architecture of the marketplace: mobile apps (iOS/Android), web platform, backend services, and data infrastructure
• Define and enforce engineering standards, security protocols, and scalability practices from day one
• Lead all technical decisions: stack selection, third-party integrations (payments, logistics APIs, AI/ML), and infrastructure choices
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines, QA frameworks, and deployment processes

2. Experience-led Product & Engineering & Delivery

• Ability to create a technical road map working backwards from the company vision
• Translate product requirements into clean, scalable technical solutions - working closely with the founding team on requirements, user stories, and sprint execution
• Own the MVP build end-to-end: core transaction flows, payments and escrow integration, buyer protection, seller dashboards, and admin tooling
• Drive engineering velocity and quality: sprint cadence, unblocking decisions, managing delivery against roadmap milestones

3. AI First Product and Experience Strategy

AI is not a feature for our platform — it is the foundation that makes the experience joyful, fast, and cost-effective at scale. We want a CTO who can leverage the full potential of AI to turn what is typically friction-heavy (listing, pricing, discovery, curation) into moments that feel almost effortless.

• Embed AI-first thinking into the product: smart listing assistance, pricing recommendations, visual search, and personalisation
• Build the data foundation: event tracking, analytics pipelines, A/B testing infrastructure, and reporting dashboards
• Define the long-term AI/ML roadmap in collaboration with co-founders

4. Team Building & Technical Leadership

• Hire, manage, and grow the engineering team as the business scales — from pre-launch contractors to a full in-house team post-funding
• Establish engineering culture: accountability, documentation, code review standards, and fast iteration
• Act as the technical voice in investor conversations, partnerships, and product strategy discussions
• Ensure the platform is built for the UAE first — local payments infrastructure, Arabic language readiness, regional logistics integration — and can scale across MENA

What We Are Looking For

• 5-10 years of engineering experience; up to 5 years in a CTO, VP, or Head of Engineering capacity
• Marketplace experience is essential — direct experience building or scaling a C2C or B2C marketplace
• AI/ML integration experience that is practical and shipped — not theoretical; you have improved a product meaningfully through AI
• Experience with social platform mechanics: feeds, notifications, recommendation systems, and content distribution at scale
• Strong full-stack capability with a backend-first mindset; comfortable with mobile (React Native or equivalent), cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP), and API design
• Proven ability to ship product fast in an early-stage environment — not just manage, but build
• Comfortable with ambiguity, high ownership, and the pace of a 0-to-1 build

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• Strong strategic thinker with equally strong executional instincts — holds the vision and ships the sprint
• Understands that the feel of an app is built in engineering decisions: latency, hierarchy, animation, and the moment-to-moment texture of the experience
• Motivated by building something culturally significant, not just technically functional
• Comfortable as a co-founder: ownership mindset, high tolerance for ambiguity, genuine excitement about the early stage
• UAE/MENA market experience preferred; willingness to travel to Dubai regularly is required
• Motivated by equity and long-term upside — this is a co-founder role, not a corporate hire

What We Offer

• Salary of 20,000 per month.
• Meaningful co-founder equity stake with standard vesting schedule. Details shared directly with shortlisted candidates
• Dubai-based or remote with regular travel to Dubai. Flexibility on base location for the right candidate
• Own visa or golden visa holder preferred. Company sponsorship possible for the right candidate

This is a rare opportunity to be a true technical co-founder of one of the MENA region’s most promising consumer platforms — not an employee, but a builder with real ownership of what gets created.