Job Details

Overview

About Fête

Fête is building a revolutionary AI-powered gifting platform that reimagines how people buy, receive, and give gifts — all within a model that is inherently sustainable. Our ecommerce storefront is the testbed, but our true innovation lies in the proprietary tech: a smart, scalable gifting engine ready to be embedded across ecosystems—from retailers to neobanks to lifestyle apps.

We're entering a critical growth phase and looking for a Head of Technology to lead the build of our core technology and the structure of our future tech organization.

About the Role

As Fête's first and most senior technical hire, you'll define, lead, and execute the vision for our technology. You'll be responsible for building our proprietary gifting engine and creating the systems, tools, and team structure to support rapid testing, iteration, and long-term scalability. This includes leveraging AI to deliver a personalized, intuitive consumer experience through our owned ecommerce platform—laying the foundation for a product that can scale into partner ecosystems.

This is a hybrid leadership and hands-on role—perfect for someone who can balance architecture with execution, strategy with speed, and innovation with discipline. You'll work closely with the Founder and Commercial Director to translate the company's vision into a robust, investor-aligned technology platform

Key Responsibilities

1. Technology Strategy & Leadership
2. Own the full-stack architecture and technical roadmap for Fête's gifting engine
3. Build and evolve the backend systems, APIs, and infrastructure to support partner integrations–particularly with fintech partners–and enable B2C/B2B scalability
4. Select and manage tech vendors and agency partners; define when to build in-house vs outsource
5. Translate investor KPIs into a technical roadmap and performance metrics
6. AI-Powered Experience Design
7. Leverage AI and machine learning to power a personalized, dynamic gifting experience across Fête's owned ecommerce platforms
8. Collaborate with product and UX teams to integrate AI-driven insights and logic into the user journey
9. Stay current with emerging AI/ML tools and best practices to inform product strategy and feature development
10. Org Design & Team Building
11. Design the structure of Fête's future technology org, including Engineering, Product Management, UX, and Analytics
12. Hire, mentor, and lead internal team members and/or contractors as needed
13. Establish engineering best practices, development cycles, QA processes, and release planning
14. Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and performance
15. Execution & Collaboration
16. Work closely with product and commercial teams to prioritize features and ensure seamless delivery
17. Build and test features through Fête's owned ecommerce storefronts before scaling to B2B partners
18. Ensure system security, data integrity, and platform performance at all stages of growth. Protect sensitive customer data and uphold compliance with relevant security and privacy standards
19. Design and implement fraud prevention systems to safeguard financial transactions. Proactively mitigate risk through infrastructure design and the evaluation or integration of third-party fintech tools
20. Act as a technical representative in investor discussions, explaining product architecture, KPIs, and scale potential

Essential Requirements

· 12 years of technical leadership experience (including team building and vendor management)

· Proven experience scaling technology at a global company in a senior leadership role (e.g., CTO, CIO, VP, or Head of Technology), ideally in a direct-to-consumer or retail context

· Proven track record in architecting and scaling consumer tech or SaaS platforms

· Experience working with ecommerce, APIs, and/or licensing-ready infrastructure

· Hands-on experience integrating AI or machine learning into consumer-facing products, such as recommendation engines, personalization tools, or predictive logic

· Proven experience implementing system security best practices and fraud prevention measures—particularly in environments handling financial transactions, digital wallets, or user cashouts.

· Experience building products from the ground up with an understanding of what investors and potential acquirers look for in technical infrastructure and scalability

· Strategic thinker with a product-oriented mindset and a bias toward rapid execution

· Excellent communication skills—comfortable interfacing with founders, designers, and investors

· Excited by the opportunity to build foundational systems in a zero-to-one environment

Why Join Fête?

· Own the technology behind a category-defining platform at the intersection of gifting, fintech, and AI

· Build the product and the team from the ground up—with the flexibility to shape the stack and org your way

· Collaborate closely with a visionary founder and a highly experienced commercial team

· Contribute to a mission-led company redefining how people celebrate and connect

· Competitive compensation and early equity