Financial Platform Architect

ABOUT FIRST CRYPTO EXCHANGE LLC

First Crypto Exchange LLC (FCE) is a digital asset trading platform enabling individuals and institutions to buy, sell, and manage cryptocurrencies securely and efficiently. 
FCE operates under a VARA license in Dubai, UAE.

FCE is building a trusted, well-governed exchange with strong market infrastructure, financial controls, regulatory compliance, and operational transparency.
 

JOB OVERVIEW

We are looking for a Financial Platform Architect to lead the architecture of FCE’s own financial core, including accounting, settlement flows, reconciliation, and integrations with banks, custodians, and liquidity providers.

You will work closely with the CTO and a small, strong engineering team, with a high level of autonomy and direct influence on key architectural decisions.
 

Priority will be given to candidates currently based in the UAE.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own the architecture of the financial core, including account model, double-entry ledger, settlement flows, and reconciliation.
• Develop the core as the system of record and systematically reduce remaining vendor dependencies.
• Design guarantees for the correctness of money movements: idempotency, transaction boundaries, and compensation for long-running processes.
• Design the model for segregation of client and proprietary funds and demonstrate that liabilities are covered by assets.
• Architect integrations with banks, custodians, and liquidity providers, including unified vendor contracts, limits, and concentration controls.
• Maintain a registry of permitted asset — counterparty — rail — jurisdiction combinations and rules for introducing new ones.
• Design market conduct controls and regulatory reporting together with Compliance.
• Maintain architectural decisions and technical documentation suitable for external audits and regulators.
• Conduct architecture reviews for changes affecting the movement of funds.
   

QUALIFICATIONS & SKILLS

• Mandatory production experience in fintech, including payments, settlement, custody, banking, or brokerage backends. Candidates without this experience will not be considered.
• Practical experience designing and operating a double-entry ledger, including chart of accounts, journal, reservations, adjustments, and reconciliation.
• Strong understanding of settlement mechanics, including payment finality, intraday and daily limits, prefunding, netting, suspense accounts, and discrepancy resolution.
• Practical experience with idempotency, distributed sagas, and compensating transactions, beyond terminology.
• Experience with external audits and regulatory requirements.
• Experience working with systems where financial errors have direct financial and regulatory consequences.
• Ability to write architecture documents that are clear not only to engineers.
• Hands-on coding experience. Daily production development is not required, but validating own architectural decisions in code, building internal tools, and working with AI agents are part of the role. TypeScript/Node is the primary stack; comparable backend experience is acceptable with willingness to work in our stack.
• Experience with AI development tools and understanding of the limitations of AI-generated code.
• Russian — fluent: project discussions, reviews, and team communication are conducted in russian.
• English — C1: required for documentation, external auditors, and vendors.
   

WORKING CONDITIONS & BENEFITS

• Employment: Full-time, permanent contract
• Location: Dubai, UAE
• Work format: Hybrid, with regular presence in the office. The company provides relocation support to employees.
• Reporting to: CTO
• Team: Small, strong engineering team
• Financial core: Own financial core in active development, with key architectural decisions being made now rather than inherited
• Responsibility: High level of autonomy and influence on architectural decisions
• Compensation: Competitive compensation based on experience
• Vacation: 20 working days per year
• Sick Leave: 10 days per year
• Days Off: 5 days per year
• Public Holidays: 8-10 days per year, depending on the holiday calendar of different countries