Fractional CTO_Travel Tech Start-Up
What We Are Building A marketplace platform serving three audiences:
- Travelers — discover, follow their favorite creators and advisors, and book curated luxury island and beach resorts instantly in one place
- Travel Creators & Advisors — build a branded storefront, share their expertise, and earn commission on every booking they drive
- Resort Partners — feature their properties and exclusive offers to a qualified audience of travelers ready to book
The platform includes:
- Booking engine with real-time availability and direct channel manager connectivity
- Commission and automatic payouts for creators and advisors
- Subscription plans for creators, advisors, and resorts
- Monthly bidding for featured placement
- Membership with exclusive resort rates
- AI-powered travel recommendations to connect creators and suggested resorts
- Mobile-first app built for discovery and instant booking
The Role We are a vision-driven founding team with a designer, developer, and engineer in place. We are rebuilding the platform from the ground up — Version 2 — and need an experienced technical leader to own all architectural decisions and guide the team from the top.
- Define and own the tech stack — evaluate and select the right frontend, backend, database, and third-party services for a marketplace of this complexity
- Architect the booking flow end-to-end — from resort inventory and availability through payment processing, booking confirmation, and post-stay retention
- Own security and compliance from day one — payments, user data, privacy, and subscription data
- Select and integrate the right CRM — one that manages our three-sided relationships across travelers, creators/advisors, and resort partners
- Set up creator commission and payout infrastructure — ensuring accurate attribution, commission calculation, and compliant payouts via Stripe Connect or equivalent
- Connect all systems cleanly — CRM, booking engine, payments, AI layer, email, and analytics must talk to each other without manual data patching
- Protect us from costly early mistakes — wrong architectural decisions at this stage mean expensive rebuilds later
- Translate between business vision and technical execution — our founding team is non-technical and needs a trusted technical voice who can communicate clearly without jargon
- Oversee and guide the existing tech team — provide direction, review technical decisions, and ensure the team is building the right things in the right order
- Start with a full audit of the current live platform before defining the V2 rebuild path
What We Are Looking For
- Has built a marketplace, booking platform, or creator commerce platform before
- Experience with subscription billing, bidding systems, or marketplace monetization
- Travel tech, luxury ecommerce, or fintech experience is a strong plus
- Proven track record of delivering on time in a startup environment
- Communicates clearly with non-technical founders - no jargon
Engagement Details Type: Fractional — part-time with the opportunity to transition into a full-time role Stage: vuecollection.com is live. Rebuild V2 Location: Remote Compensation: Open - fee and equity considered for the right person