CTO - Tradepay; B2B BNPL | AI-First Credit & Risk

Overview

About Trade Pay
:
Trade Pay is a fast-growing fintech platform reshaping how merchants access working capital and manage inventory through smart, data-driven financial tools. We empower underserved businesses with Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and trade-enablement solutions that help SMEs trade, grow, and compete.

About Trade Pay
:
Trade Pay is a fast-growing fintech platform reshaping how merchants access working capital and manage inventory through smart, data-driven financial tools. We empower underserved businesses with Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and trade-enablement solutions that help SMEs trade, grow, and compete.

We’re entering a build-and-scale phase where AI is core to the product (credit decisions, risk monitoring, merchant insights) and also a force-multiplier for internal operations. We’re looking for a hands-on CTO who can set direction, ship, and build a world-class engineering and data organization in Riyadh.

This is a builder role: strategic leadership and technical execution.

• Product & AI Leadership
  • Lead the development of AI-enabled products that support:
  • merchant credit decisions and underwriting
  • fraud/risk monitoring and early-warning signals
  • dynamic limit management and real-time decisioning
  • inventory insights and cashflow intelligence for merchants
• Translate messy, real-world data into tools that improve decision quality, reduce loss rates, and expand access to finance responsibly.
• Drive a responsible AI approach: model monitoring, drift detection, explainability, and human-in-the-loop workflows where needed.

• Define AI work streams, milestones, and measurable outcomes (e.g., approval lift, loss reduction, time-to-decision, merchant growth impact).
• Ensure the platform and operating model can support grant reporting, evaluation, and delivery timelines.
• Build a roadmap that strengthens local capability (team development, process maturity, scalable ML operations).
• Own the architecture and engineering roadmap from pilot → MVP → scale, ensuring systems are secure, scalable, and maintainable.
• Build and operate a modern data and ML platform (data ingestion, feature pipelines, training/serving, experimentation, monitoring).
• Establish technical standards across code quality, CI/CD, observability, reliability, and documentation.
• Make pragmatic build vs. buy decisions across infrastructure, data providers, scoring components, identity/KYC tooling, and payment rails.

• Hire, train, and coach a high-performing engineering and data team in Riyadh (and/or hybrid hubs as needed).
• Create a culture of ownership, crisp communication, rapid experimentation, and customer-first product thinking.
• Partner tightly with Risk, Operations, Finance, Legal/Compliance, and Partnerships.

• Build security and privacy foundations that can withstand audits and support future licensing pathways.
• Ensure strong data governance practices (access controls, logging, incident readiness, DR/BCP).
• Align with Saudi market requirements and best-practice controls for sensitive financial data.

• Proven experience shipping AI/ML-powered products into production (not just prototypes).
• Strong software engineering fundamentals plus practical ML/data platform experience.
• Experience in fintech, lending, BNPL, payments, risk, fraud, underwriting, or adjacent decisioning systems.
• Track record turning complex datasets into real-world decision tools and business impact.
• Leadership experience in fast-paced environments (hiring, mentoring, performance management, delivery accountability).
• High standards for reliability, security, and maintainable architecture.
• Builder mindset: defaults to action, thrives in ambiguity, owns outcomes end-to-end.

• Experience working with credit bureaus, alternative data, open banking signals, or merchant transaction/invoice data.
• Experience with cloud-native and serverless patterns at scale (AWS/GCP/Azure), event-driven architectures, and modern observability stacks.
• Familiarity with regulated environments and privacy/security leadership responsibilities (e.g., ISO/SOC2-style controls, data protection).
• Experience in the GCC or emerging-market financial inclusion products.

This is an on-site leadership role based in Riyadh, working closely with the CEO and cross-functional leadership.

We Value Leaders Who

• communicate crisply
• build strong teams
• ship in increments
• treat security and responsible AI as fundamentals, not afterthoughts
• can take a fintech platform from concept to scale

If you’ve built decision systems that make finance work better for real businesses, and you love building, let’s talk.