Thomas A.-CTO / Engineering Leader / Principal Architect
Check rate
Experience
Co-Founder, CTO & CPO
Baha Pay AG
Co-founded and built Baha Pay from concept toward commercial launch, leading product vision, technology strategy, architecture, and engineering for a regulated crypto payment platform across POS, e-commerce, and invoicing.
- Designed and delivered the core payment platform spanning transaction processing, blockchain payments, merchant settlement, and banking integrations.
- Architected and delivered resilient hybrid infrastructure across Microsoft Azure and on-premise blockchain node environments, supporting secure multi-chain payment and settlement operations.
- Designed a segregated Inkasso-based payment and settlement model approved by VQF, establishing the regulatory architecture for operating under Swiss AML requirements.
- Designed secure key management and transaction control architecture supporting Proof of Ownership and Travel Rule compliance, extending the platform toward MiCA-ready digital asset operations.
- Built and scaled the engineering organization from 1 to 7 while coordinating external engineering and infrastructure teams.
Founder, Principal Consultant / Fractional CPTO
21PAY
Founded 21Pay to help fintech and digital asset companies create regulated financial products, define technology strategy, and build high-performing engineering organizations, leveraging experience from creating and scaling Bitcoin Suisse Pay.
- Provide fractional CTO/CPO leadership and executive technology advisory, working directly with founders and executive teams.
- Lead 0 to 1 product and technology initiatives across payments and digital asset infrastructure, from product strategy and regulatory architecture through engineering execution.
- Design and deliver secure payment, settlement, custody, wallet, and blockchain infrastructure, translating complex regulatory and commercial requirements into pragmatic architectures for regulated financial products.
Co-Founder & CTO
Stealth Mode Financial Services
Building and leading the technology and product for a crypto payment platform supporting POS, e-commerce, and invoicing across B2B and B2C.
- Lead technology and product strategy, defining platform architecture, product vision, and multi-year roadmap for a crypto payment platform built from 0 to 1
- Architect secure transaction and settlement infrastructure integrating blockchain networks, custody services, and traditional payment rails
- Design platform architecture supporting multi-chain digital asset payments, merchant settlement, and regulatory readiness (MiCA, Travel Rule)
- Architect a segregated Inkasso-based settlement model separating wallet signing authority from custody and payment infrastructure operations
- Work directly with VQF (Swiss Self-Regulatory Organization) to validate and obtain regulatory approval under Swiss AML requirements
- Build and scale the engineering organization from 1 to 7, establishing engineering leadership and delivery processes
- Mentor external infrastructure teams operating blockchain nodes supporting platform scalability and reliability
Head of Pay Engineering / Solution Architect
Bitcoin Suisse
Created and built Bitcoin Suisse Pay from the ground up, establishing it as a strategic crypto payment product across POS, e-commerce, and invoicing. Led product strategy, architecture, and engineering while providing architectural leadership across Bitcoin Suisse's broader financial technology platform as the company scaled from ~25 to 300+ employees.
- Defined the product vision, architecture, and technical foundation for Bitcoin Suisse Pay, leading delivery from concept through launch and commercial operation and contributing to the company securing its lead Series A investor.
- Built the payment platform enabling Bitcoin Suisse's Worldline partnership and access to ~70,000 merchants, expanding the ecosystem through integrations with PostFinance and Wallee.
- Architected distributed transaction infrastructure capable of ~40,000 TPS per blockchain network with >99.99% availability.
- Delivered one of Europe's first Bitcoin Lightning-enabled merchant payment platforms in 2020 and introduced instant merchant settlement in Bitcoin, Ether, and ERC-20 stablecoins.
- Built and scaled the Pay engineering organization from 1 to 18 engineers across multiple countries, establishing engineering leadership, delivery processes, and technical culture.
- Architected Bitcoin Suisse's central Integration Hub and API platform, connecting core banking with trading, lending, payments, staking, custody, banking integrations, and other financial services.
- Provided architectural leadership across Bitcoin Suisse's broader financial technology platform, spanning core banking, custody, blockchain infrastructure, banking integrations, and regulated financial systems.
Solution Architect / Lead Developer
Novozymes
Enterprise-scale architecture role supporting global operations in a regulated, industrial environment.
- Led architecture initiatives supporting global operations and multiple business units (R&D, Finance, etc.).
- Led and coordinated delivery across cross-functional engineering teams (10-25 engineers), including internal staff and external consultants.
- Mentored engineers and contributed to hiring and technical screening for project teams.
- Delivered platforms optimized for performance, security, and long-term maintainability.
- Architected and delivered mission-critical internal platforms supporting global operations.
Senior Consultant
DIS/PLAY (now AKQA)
Senior consultant delivering enterprise digital platforms for customers including Novo Nordisk and Novozymes.
- Led architecture and delivery of large-scale digital platforms integrating enterprise systems and content infrastructure
- Mentored developers across multiple project teams, supporting architecture decisions, code quality, and delivery practices
- Collaborated with sales and leadership on technical proposals and bid responses for enterprise clients
- Engineered high-performance web platforms focused on scalability, integration, and operational reliability
System Engineer / Software Engineer
Zenitel
Worked on mission-critical communication systems used by police, fire brigades, medical services, and defense organizations.
- Developed components for nationwide TETRA-based communication and fleet management systems used by Danish emergency services
- Delivered solutions across the ZeniFire, ZeniPol, and ZeniAmbu platforms supporting incident response, dispatch, and field coordination
- Contributed to communication and fleet management infrastructure deployed during the Danish police reform (Politireformen)
- Implemented systems integrating RFID-based equipment tracking, enabling dispatch centers to identify team capabilities during incidents
- Participated in rapid delivery of the ZeniPol platform (~10,000 engineering hours in 9 months) supporting national emergency communication operations
- Developed early C/C++ fleet management solutions for taxi dispatch across analog and GPRS networks
- Reverse-engineered undocumented network protocols through packet level traffic analysis, enabling integration with legacy communication systems
Industry experience
See where this freelancer has spent most of their professional time.
Experienced in Banking and Finance, Aerospace and Defense, Healthcare, Government and Administration, Telecommunication, and Biotechnology.
Business area experience
See which departments and functions this freelancer has contributed to most.
Experienced in Information Technology, Product Development, Strategy, and Project Management.
Summary
CTO and engineering leader with 20 years of experience building mission-critical software across public safety, enterprise technology, and regulated fintech. Over the past 7 years, focused on building crypto payment products, digital asset infrastructure, banking and settlement integrations, and regulated financial technology.
Combines engineering leadership with deep, hands-on engineering and architectural expertise to transform business opportunities into products that create measurable business value, build and scale high-performing engineering organizations, and deliver secure, resilient, and scalable systems operating in regulated environments.
Experienced in taking products from 0 to 1, transforming concepts into successful businesses through technology leadership, product strategy, engineering execution, and organizational growth.
Brings deep expertise in software and enterprise architecture, distributed systems, event-driven architecture, and financial systems integration, designing secure, scalable, and resilient platforms for mission-critical and regulated environments.
Known for translating complex business, product, and regulatory requirements into pragmatic, production-grade systems that balance technical excellence with commercial outcomes.
Skills
Executive & Engineering Leadership
- Technology Leadership & Platform Strategy
- Product Strategy, Ownership & Roadmap Execution
- Engineering Leadership & Organizational Scaling
- Engineering Delivery & Operational Leadership
- Agile Engineering Organizations & Delivery Models
- Cross-Functional Leadership Across Product, Engineering, Risk & Compliance
- Executive & Board-Level Stakeholder Engagement
Platform & Systems Architecture
- Distributed Systems & Event-Driven Architecture
- Domain-Driven Architecture
- High-Performance Financial Systems
- Api-First & Integration Architecture
- Cloud Native Platforms
- Resilient & Fault-Tolerant Systems
- Observability & Operational Resilience
- Enterprise Architecture & Governance
Crypto, Payments & Regulated Systems
- Payment, Banking & Settlement Infrastructure
- Digital Asset Infrastructure
- Wallet, Custody & Key Management
- Stablecoins & Tokenization
- Banking & Financial Systems Integration
- Compliance-Driven Architecture (Aml/Kyc, Travel Rule, Proof Of Ownership)
- Mica
- Iso 20022
Governance, Risk & Assurance
- Technology Due Diligence
- Technical & Security Audits
- Technology Risk & Controls
- Regulatory & Audit Readiness
- Iso 27001
- Isae 3402 Type Ii
- Dora
Languages, Frameworks & Runtimes
- C# / .Net
- Typescript
- Javascript
- Node.Js
- React
- Blazor
- C / C++
- Solidity
Apis & Communication Protocols
- Rest
- Openapi
- Grpc
- Graphql
- Websocket
Data, Persistence & Caching
- Sql Server
- Postgresql
- Cosmos Db
- Redis
- Entity Framework / Ef Core
- Dapper
Messaging, Queues & Streaming
- Kafka
- Rabbitmq
- Azure Service Bus
- Amqp
- Zeromq
Blockchain Technologies
- Bitcoin
- Lightning Network
- Ethereum & Evm Ecosystems (Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism)
- Solana
- Smart Contracts
- Erc-20 & Token Standards
Networking & Connectivity
- Network Architecture
- Tcp/Ip
- Vpn & Secure Connectivity
- Cloud Networking
- Network Troubleshooting & Packet Analysis
- Protocol Analysis & Reverse Engineering
Cloud & Infrastructure
- Microsoft Azure
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- Infrastructure As Code (Iac)
- Ci/Cd Pipelines
Observability, Performance & Reliability
- Production Telemetry
- Monitoring & Logging
- Distributed Tracing
- Performance Optimization
- Reliability Engineering
Engineering Practices & Delivery
- Agile / Scrum
- Cqrs
- Microservices
- Test-Driven Development (Tdd)
- Continuous Delivery
- Zero-Downtime Deployments
Development Tooling
- Visual Studio
- Vs Code
- Git
- Github
- Azure Devops
- Claude Code
- Chatgpt/Codex
- Github Copilot
Security, Identity & Cryptography
- Key Management & Applied Cryptography
- Hsm Integration
- Encryption & Transaction Signing
- Pki & Certificate Management
- Secure System Design
- Secrets Management
- Identity & Access Management (Iam)
- Oauth 2.0 / Openid Connect
Languages
Education
TEC
Data technician · Data technician
Statistics
Experience
Global experience
Expertise
Qualifications
Profile
Frequently asked questions
Have questions? Find more information here.
Thomas is based in Copenhagen, Denmark and can operate in on-site, hybrid, and remote work models.
Thomas speaks the following languages: Danish (Native), English (Advanced).
Thomas has at least 22 years of experience. During this time, Thomas has worked in at least 7 different roles and for 7 different companies. The average length of individual experience is 3 years and 1 month. Note that Thomas may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.
Based on recent experience, Thomas would be well-suited for roles such as: Co-Founder, CTO & CPO, Founder, Principal Consultant / Fractional CPTO, Co-Founder & CTO.
Thomas's most recent position is Co-Founder, CTO & CPO at Baha Pay AG.
In recent years, Thomas has worked for Baha Pay AG, 21PAY, Stealth Mode Financial Services, and Bitcoin Suisse.
Thomas is most experienced in industries like Banking and Finance, Aerospace and Defense, and Healthcare. Thomas also has some experience in Government and Administration, Telecommunication, and Biotechnology.
Thomas is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology, Product Development, and Strategy. Thomas also has some experience in Project Management.
Thomas has recently worked in industries like Banking and Finance.
Thomas has recently worked in business areas like Information Technology, Product Development, and Strategy.
Thomas attended TEC for Data technician.
Thomas is immediately available full-time for suitable projects.
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Average rates for similar positions
Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.
The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.
The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.
Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 17 Oct 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
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