About us:

Kiva (kiva.org) is an international nonprofit with a mission to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive. We run a global marketplace platform to crowdfund microloans for financially excluded entrepreneurs, farmers and students around the world. Through Kiva Capital, we serve as a bridge between large scale impact first investors and underserved populations. Our digital identity platform enables borrowers who don’t have a track record with traditional financial institutions to record and verify their financial history and gain access to less costly mainstream financial markets.

Our organization combines the culture and technological passion of an internet start-up with the compassion and empathy of a non-profit to create impact and opportunity at global scale. Since 2005, we have raised more than $1.6 billion in loan capital for over 4million borrowers in 98 countries. Our lenders fund over $10 million in loans every month. With offices in San Francisco, Portland, New York, Nairobi, and Bangkok, Kiva’s team includes 100+ employees and 400+ volunteers worldwide. Our team is growing as we pursue exciting new opportunities to create a financially inclusive world.

Kiva’s values:

Impact first - This is why we exist. This is the drumbeat we march to. Every day.

Extreme ownership - Own it; you, your relationships, your impact. Insist that others support you and hold you accountable.

Be curious and bold - Never stop learning. Question assumptions. Take Risks and dream big.

Inclusion. Equity. Diversity. - Without reservation and without caveat. In our hiring, in our workplace and in our impact in the world.

Honor and integrity - Do the most right thing in the most right way. Cherish diversity and respect each other.

Love and kindness always - Say what you mean. Mean what you say. And don’t say it mean. Clarity. Courage. Kindness.

Role overview:

Technology has been the foundational enabler of Kiva’s mission since our founding. The Kiva.org internet marketplace spans the globe, and our underlying technology platform facilitates loans and loan repayments in nearly every country in the world, making it the world’s largest crowdlending platform for micro-entrepreneurs. 

Kiva’s technology stack has been undergoing massive transformation. Within the past few years, we have migrated to the cloud, launched native mobile applications, built an open source technology platform for the unbanked and underbanked population, rewritten our frontend leveraging single-page application and server-side rendering frameworks, and began refactoring our monolith into microservices.

The Chief Technology Officer is the chief internal and external evangelist for Kiva’s technology. The ideal candidate will be a force multiplier and scale Kiva’s trajectory of growing its impact around the world.

At this time, we can only consider applicants with authorization to work in the United States on a permanent, full-time basis; unfortunately we cannot provide visa sponsorship.

Key responsibilities include: 

• Lead and participate in long-term strategic and operational planning to achieve business goals and prioritize development initiatives.
• Oversee engineering, data science, IT departments across all of Kiva’s business units.
• Instill an engineering culture focused on delivering and maximizing our impact in the world through technology-based solutions.
• Provide the vision for the technology platform, drive the development of the technology roadmap, evaluate new and promising technologies, and incubate MVP and foundational initiatives that can significantly unlock business scale and impact opportunities.
• Create an environment that promotes engineering excellence by attracting and retaining high-performing talent from diverse backgrounds and designing effective organizational structure, processes, systems, and tools.
• Work closely with product and other teams to build products and features that allow Kiva to achieve its goals
• Foster a team-first attitude by building strong partnerships, collaboration, and alignment across functions and stewarding a culture of diversity, inclusiveness, ownership, boldness, and innovation. 
• Champion an experimental and data-driven mindset and promote practices that reward risk taking and afford rapid response to market feedback.
• Represent Kiva’s technology strategy and promote Kiva’s technology brand to external and internal stakeholders.
• Establish, define and track metrics and monitor progress to ensure that objectives are achieved, particularly in software development and technical operations.

Preferred qualifications:

• 15+ years of professional experience with at least 8 years in an executive or similar level capacity
• Proven track record in building and leading high performance engineering teams of 50+ across a portfolio of products or product lines
• Deep knowledge and experience in leading cloud-based and mobile application development in high-growth companies, site reliability, cybersecurity and information security, big data engineering and architecture
• Exceptional cross-functional collaborator with an ability to bring people along with your vision
• Familiarity with AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, GraphQL, Kotlin, Swift, and Vue.js.
• Demonstrated ability to build technology products from the ground up and optimize mature products, balancing short term and long term technology investments
• Non-profit, fintech, consumer, marketplace, SaaS, machine learning, and/or international experience a plus

What we offer:

• An opportunity to improve real lives, solve hard problems, and change the world
• Friendly, supportive, and adventurous environment with a team of engaged colleagues
• A comprehensive, industry-leading benefits package including health, dental and vision insurance, parental leave, professional development, 401k matching, generous PTO, and more.
• Opportunities to connect with and learn from colleagues and partners around the world
• Salary range: $275K - $310K; a final offer will be dependent upon a candidate’s location, skills and experience. 

A diverse and inclusive workplace where we learn from each other is an integral part of Kiva’s culture. We actively welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. We are an equal opportunity employer and a great place to work. Join us and help us achieve our mission!

We will only accept applications directly from candidates. Kiva will not be responsible for any recruiting agency fees, absent a formal agreement.