Founding Chief Technical Officer, Cookie Jar Collective

## Founding Chief Technical Officer, Cookie Jar CollectiveSave this Listing---Job Title: Founding Chief Technology Officer Location: Remote (US-based required) Type: Full-Time Salary: $150,000 / year Term: Initial 1 year contract CCI has a long history of supporting artists–giving grants directly to artists; funding projects that are experimenting with new social, cultural, and economic systems; and, through the new Research to Impact Lab (R2i Lab), incubating technology to facilitate alternative systems of mutualism, self-determination, and equitable economic structures. One such technology is a savings and benefits platform for artists and gig workers we are calling the Cookie Jar Collective. The Cookie Jar Collective is a collective savings tool that empowers trusted groups—friends, families, creative collaborators, online communities—to grow and manage their shared resources together. Think Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs), lending circles, and community treasuries reimagined with transparency, flexibility, and technology that centers cooperation. Our mission is to unlock the power of collective wealth, especially for those who have been excluded or underserved by traditional financial systems. Our team has spent the past 18-24 months conducting extensive ecosystem/market research, interviews with potential public & private sector partners, artist focus groups, and numerous collaborative design sessions to arrive at our current product vision. That being said, we still have lots of open questions and are looking for someone who can weigh in with technical expertise, guidance, and execution. Our Founding CTO can expect a high level of project ownership and decision-making capacity. We’re a small, values-driven team looking for a technical expert to join us and help shape both the product and the organization from the ground up.About the Role As our Founding Chief Technology Officer, you’ll be the first technical hire and a core architect of the product. You’ll work closely with the founding team to build and iterate on the MVP, make key decisions around tech stack, and lay the groundwork for a scalable, secure, and user-friendly platform. This is a high-impact, high-trust role for someone who is excited by both product ownership and community-centered technology. Generating huge profit margins is not the driving force behind this work. Our goal is to contribute something meaningful to artists, freelancers and the institutions that support them. We are looking for someone that understands this and can steer product development in a way that maximizes social impact.What You’ll Do ● Lead Product Development: Oversee the planning, execution, and delivery of the product. Manage project timelines and ensure the end-to-end development of this product from initial concepts through successful launch. ● Build the MVP: From wireframes to working product—develop core features such as group formation, deposits and withdrawals, governance and decision-making mechanisms, and group communication and coordination features. ● Build in Public: Ensure accountability to our community through working with our team to share learning along the way. Contribute to publishing open source code, blog posts, and other media to make meaningful contributions to the field beyond the product itself. ● Lead Architecture: Define the technical direction, choose the stack, and establish engineering best practices. Explore the role of decentralized infrastructure and community ownership models (DAOs, co-ops, etc.) ● Ensure Compliance, Security & Trust: Implement systems with a deep respect for data security, consent, and community governance. ● Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Work alongside the founding team on product design, community co-creation, pilot programs, and testing. ● Travel as needed: Potential users of the Cookie Jar Collective are freelancers across sectors. As a result, travel associated with piloting and marketing the model to funders and potential users will be required.Who You Are We are ideally looking for someone who has experience previously leading the development and implementation of a digital financial services platform–especially those that support cooperative, mutual aid, or community finance models. We’d love it if you also have some familiarity with U.S. labor policy, particularly around public services for underserved groups.● A full-stack developer and systems thinker comfortable building and shipping products end-to-end ● 8+ years of professional experience (or equivalent skills) in product development and software engineering ● Experienced in multiple web development frameworks - frontend (React, Vue) and backend (Django, Node) with an ability to understand the nuances between them and choose the right toolset for this project. ● Architecture and infrastructure provisioning, maintenance, and security (picking cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, etc.); making security choices. ● Data engineering (model design, cost estimation, skills with traditional databases as well as blockchain technologies and ability to draw the lines re: which data is stored where. ● Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline setup and repository management ● Familiarity with digital wallets, payment rails (e.g. Plaid, Stripe, Dwolla), or blockchain ● Open-source contributions or prior startup/co-op experience ● Passionate about financial justice, mutual aid, cooperatives, or alternative economies ● Excited by early-stage ambiguity, willing to get scrappy, and deeply collaborative ● Values-driven: You care about ethics, equity, and building systems people can actually trust ● Interest in user research and participatory design ● Awareness of compliance-adjacent concerns (e.g. KYC, AML, PCI) and experience working within those frameworks—even better if you’ve worked with banking-as-a-service providers. Since we are a California-based nonprofit, some familiarity with CCPA privacy protections is not a must but would be helpful. Note on hiring: For now, we are not looking to hire/contract with teams (development firms, product designer/manager + developer duos, innovation studios, etc.). We are hiring just one individual full-time Founding CTO.What We Offer ● Compensation: $150,000 / year ● Additionally, CCI offers a benefits package that includes: ○ 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision plans for employees (eligible dependents available at additional costs) ○ Life/AD&D and Long-Term Disability Insurance ○ Voluntary 403b retirement savings plan ○ Voluntary Health Care FSA and Dependent Care FSA ○ 120 personal paid time off hours, which increases over time, and sick time ○ Time off between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and additional holidays throughout the year ○ $600 annual stipend for professional development opportunities ○ $100 monthly stipend for working remotely ○ Remote office equipment (computer, phone) and suppliesNote on compensation: This is not a traditional startup model where we expect a large acquisition or IPO, and therefore a large payout for early team members. Rather, we are offering a full-time salaried position with benefits at our non-profit in hopes of attracting someone interested in building technology that extends the impact of CCI to more people and communities.Our Commitment At CCI, we are committed to considering a broad range of applicants, including and especially those with diverse work experiences and perspectives. Your cover letter is the perfect place to tell us about your interest in our work and what you could bring to this role. CCI is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified #J-18808-Ljbffr