Hands-On VP Engineering – Payments & Fintech (French Speaker)

About the Role We are looking for a Hands-On VP Engineering to act as the right hand of the CTO within a fast-growing fintech company operating in the payments industry. This is not a management-only position. We are looking for a highly technical leader who still writes code, performs code reviews, challenges architectural decisions and can personally step in on complex technical topics when needed. You will lead the engineering team while remaining deeply involved in technical execution and product development. French fluency is mandatory for this role. Tech Stack Node.js React AWS PostgreSQL APIs & Integrations Responsibilities Lead and mentor the engineering team. Actively contribute to development and code reviews. Define and challenge architectural decisions. Ensure engineering quality, scalability and delivery velocity. Work closely with Product, Operations and Business teams. Contribute directly to critical features and integrations. Build a resilient, scalable and secure platform. Requirements Mandatory 10+ years of software engineering experience. 3+ years leading engineering teams. Strong expertise in Node.js, React and AWS. Still actively coding today. Significant experience in payments, fintech or payment infrastructure. Hands-on experience with several of the following: Payment Orchestration PSP Integrations Multi-PSP Environments Acquiring Smart Routing Cascading Payment Gateways Transaction Processing Fraud & Chargebacks Experience working on high-volume transactional platforms. Fluent French speaker. Nice to Have High-Risk Payments. Subscription Billing. iGaming, Forex, Nutra, Dating or similar industries. Experience building payment infrastructure from scratch. What We Are NOT Looking For Pure people managers. Corporate VP Engineering profiles disconnected from technology. Leaders focused mainly on reporting and meetings. Profiles managing through multiple layers of management. We are looking for a builder first — someone capable of leading engineers in the morning and merging code in the afternoon. Details Freelance or long-term contract. Remote. Immediate start preferred. Long-term collaboration.