CTO

Location: Full remote, APAC + European Timezones

Role: Full time

About Us

Migaku is redefining language learning by combining the joys of media—anime, shows, and more—with advanced language learning tools. With a rapidly growing user base, a product approaching market dominance, and recent investments in top-tier talent from companies like Babbel, Netflix, and Blizzard, we are poised to disrupt the market and challenge the biggest players, including Duolingo.

We are seeking a dynamic, hands-on CTO to take the reins of our engineering team, lead the development of our innovative language-learning platform, and help drive the company’s next stage of explosive growth.

The Role

This is a career-defining opportunity for a passionate and experienced technologist who thrives in fast-paced environments. As CTO, you will lead our technical vision and execution, manage a high-performing team, and ensure our product continues to deliver exceptional value to our users.

We need a leader who embodies a ship-first mentality—someone who can navigate trade-offs to balance technical debt with rapid iteration and who isn’t afraid of the challenges that come with scaling an ambitious startup.

This role requires a mix of technical excellence, hands-on development, team leadership, and a deep personal passion for language learning.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership: Lead the architecture, development, and deployment of Migaku’s Kotlin Multi-platform API and related technologies.

• Hands-On Coding: Be deeply involved in coding, troubleshooting, and feature implementation.

• Team Management: Mentor, manage, and scale a distributed engineering team, ensuring high performance and accountability.

• Strategic Vision: Define and execute the technical roadmap in alignment with the company’s mission and growth objectives.

• Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams, including product, marketing, and design, to develop and launch features that delight users.

• User-Centric Development: Interact with users to understand pain points, prioritize improvements, and deliver impactful solutions.

• Infrastructure Management: Maintain and optimize backend systems on Google Cloud and Cloudflare platforms to ensure scalability and reliability.

What We’re Looking For

• Professional Experience:

  • 4+ years of experience as a Kotlin developer, with expertise in Kotlin Multiplatform.

  • 3+ years of experience managing infrastructure on PaaS platforms such as Google Cloud.

  • 2+ years of team management experience, with a proven track record of hiring and mentoring engineers. 

• Technical Skills:

  • Proficient in Linux and web technologies.

  • Experience with backend architectures and infrastructure design.

  • Strong problem-solving skills with a ship-first mindset.

• Personal Traits:

  • Passionate about language learning, with demonstrated success in learning a challenging language (e.g., Japanese, Chinese, or Korean) to fluency.

  • A love for media (anime, TV shows, etc.) that aligns with our brand’s ethos.

  • Excellent communicator, able to provide clear, structured guidance to the team and stakeholders.

• Nice-to-Have:

  • Experience with Firebase, Vue.js, Python, iOS development, or language parsing libraries (e.g., MeCab).

  • Familiarity with multilingual or multicultural work environments.

  • Entrepreneurial or startup experience building products and teams is highly welcome.

Why Join Migaku?

• Work on a product that blends two universally loved experiences: media and language learning.

• Be part of a fast-scaling company on track to dominate its market.

• Join a passionate, mission-driven team committed to making language learning engaging and effective.

• Enjoy a collaborative remote environment that values autonomy and innovation.

Who You'll Work With

Our new CTO would join a partnership between Lucas, Migaku’s CEO, and Jannik, who’s both Migaku’s Creative Director and Lead Investor. Lucas and Jannik bond over a shared passion for effective language learning: Lucas studied out of personal interest and at one time knew more Japanese characters than the average Japanese citizen, while Jannik comes from the opposite corner, having needed to study Japanese to conduct his business activities.

Lucas laid the foundation for Migaku with a Patreon-funded software project including an invaluable Discord community of thousands of paying users, while Jannik contributes his decades long experience designing software, setting up lean corporate structures, and building passionate teams.

Both Lucas and Jannik have never stopped writing code since high school, which is testament to their shared appreciation for elegant software architectures. We believe the uncompromising pursuit of excellence in both technology and user experience will lead to an unbeatable products and companies.

In addition, two recent rock star hires from language learning heavyweight Babbel (Migaku’s new Head of Marketing) and legendary Activision Blizzard (Migaku’s new Product Design Lead) prove that Migaku is able to play with the best.

Our vision is to become not just a wild financial success, but also to establish a cultural language learning phenomenon. If that sounds exciting to you, join us and help make this a reality.

Hiring Process

1. Initial Screening: A brief conversation with our recruiter to discuss your background and the role.

2. Technical Interview: A deep dive with the hiring manager on your technical expertise and problem-solving approach.

3. Two Take-Home Assignments: Showcase your skills with practical challenges tailored to the role.

4. Final Interview: Meet with the CEO and key stakeholders for a cultural and strategic alignment discussion.

Apply Now

If you’re ready to take on a leadership role and make an impact on the language-learning industry, with a team of polyglots we’d love to hear from you. Share your resume, portfolio, and a brief note about why you’re excited to join Migaku.