---
title: 'Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Obsidian Systems'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/chief-financial-officer-cfo-obsidian-systems-united-states-us-east-coast-t3a52q8s12j1'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Obsidian Systems

- **Company:** Obsidian Systems
- **Location:** United States / US East Coast
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-08-21
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/obsidiansystems/7e256b25-9db8-4b65-b52e-76bdc93790a1

## Job description

## About Obsidian Systems

Obsidian Systems is a software engineering consultancy that builds production systems for capital markets and other regulated industries. Our clients include market infrastructure providers, national exchanges, and global financial institutions. Much of our work today centers on the Canton Network, the privacy enabled blockchain adopted by major capital markets institutions, where Obsidian is one of the most experienced engineering firms in the ecosystem.

We've grown from 40 to 70+ people in the past year, and we're on track to pass 100 within the next six months. We're also expanding geographically, with growth planned in London and Asia Pacific. Our consulting client base has evolved too and we're increasingly working with large financial institutions who bring institutional-grade expectations around security, insurance, and financial transparency, and digital asset payments. This is a pivotal moment for the company, and we're looking for a CFO who's built finance functions for companies at this scale before, and who wants to do it again with us.

## About The Role

We're hiring a CFO who can be a genuine operating partner to the business. Someone who is a strategist, and comfortable in the details when the situation calls for it. You'll own financial strategy, planning, compliance, and reporting across a multi-entity global structure, while also building the operational infrastructure (controls, processes, close cadence) that a company our size and trajectory needs.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You'll have a small team to develop, but you should expect to roll up your sleeves alongside them.

## What You'll Own

- Financial strategy & planning: Lead forecasting, budgeting, and long-range planning across our consulting and product business lines.
- Compliance & tax: Ensure the company stays compliant across all entities and jurisdictions, including tax filings and reporting requirements.
- Multi-entity financial management: Oversee financial reporting and controls across our growing entity structure, including our Puerto Rico entity, as we expand into new markets including London and Asia Pacific.
- Digital asset accounting & treasury: Manage the accounting, tax treatment, and treasury implications of consulting contracts paid in digital assets.
- Institutional client requirements: Support the sales and delivery teams by meeting the financial diligence expectations of large institutional clients i.e insurance requirements, security standards, and financial performance disclosures.
- Process & controls: Build (or rebuild) the financial infrastructure i.e. close process, controls, reporting cadence
- Team leadership: Manage and develop a small finance team (currently a controller and a bookkeeper), with plans to grow the team as needed.
- Year-end close & audit readiness: Own the FY close process and ensure the company is audit-ready as our reporting requirements increase.
- Board & founder reporting: Provide clear, digestible financial reporting to the founders and other stakeholders as needed.

## Key Requirements

- Proven experience scaling a finance function through significant company growth- ideally through the 100 → 150+ employee range, not just operating at that size.
- Genuinely hands-on. You should be as comfortable building a model in a spreadsheet yourself as you are directing a team to do it.
- Multi-entity, global experience. You've dealt with the complexity of financial reporting and compliance across multiple entities and countries.
- Compliance and risk fluency. Experience navigating insurance requirements, security/compliance standards, and the financial diligence expectations of large financial institutions as clients
- Crypto/digital asset experience is required. Our consulting contracts include payment in digital assets, so you should be comfortable with the accounting, tax, and treasury implications of crypto-denominated revenue.
- Process builder. You've stood up financial controls and operating rhythm from scratch, or significantly matured an existing one.
- Team leadership with realistic expectations. You can manage a small team while still being willing to do the work yourself when needed.
- Global expansion experience. We're expanding into London and Asia Pacific and will have clients based in those regions. Experience with international entity structuring, reporting, and compliance across these regions is a strong plus.
- Puerto Rico entity experience preferred. One of our entities is based in Puerto Rico; familiarity with Puerto Rico's tax and compliance requirements is a plus.
- Experience in professional services / consulting business models is a plus.

## How We Work

At Obsidian Systems, we believe great work comes from thoughtful people who take ownership, communicate openly, and enjoy solving difficult problems together. These principles guide how we work every day.

Own Your Work, Protect Your Team

- We take full ownership of our responsibilities while supporting the people around us. We believe accountability creates trust, and clear ownership allows teams to move quickly without stepping on one another's work.

Don't Settle for Superficial

- We aim to understand problems deeply rather than treating symptoms. We ask questions, challenge assumptions, and make unknowns explicit so we can build durable solutions instead of temporary fixes.

Be Honest Proactively

- We communicate openly and early. Raising risks before they become problems helps our team and our clients make better decisions. We value transparency over avoiding uncomfortable conversations.

Get to It

- Many of the challenges we solve have never been solved before. We don't wait for perfection; we start, learn, iterate, and move forward. Progress comes from taking the next concrete step.

If you're excited by continuous learning and playing a real role in building the next generation of financial market infrastructure, you'll feel at home at Obsidian.

## About Obsidian Systems

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Obsidian Systems is a software engineering consultancy that builds complex, high-assurance systems using advanced tools like Haskell and Nix for clients in blockchain, finance, healthcare, and other demanding domains.
- **Entity Type**: Private (bootstrapped; no disclosed funding rounds)
- **Headquarters**: New York, NY, USA
- **Founded**: 2014
- **Founders**: Ali Abrar and Ryan Trinkle

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Blockchain, finance, healthcare, government, transportation, education, infrastructure
- **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises, blockchain foundations, startups, and research institutions that need custom, high-reliability software
- **Mission or purpose**: “To raise the ceiling of what software engineering can do” by applying powerful ideas from programming languages, formal systems, and reproducible infrastructure to production environments.

## Products & Services
- **Custom Software Development**: End-to-end services including product definition, UI/UX design, development, deployment, and operations support; platforms range from web and mobile to hardware wallets and blockchain validators.
- **Kiln**: A GUI block validator and monitoring app for the Tezos blockchain.
- **Tezos Baking & Wallet Applications**: Hardware wallet apps (Ledger) for Tezos and Sui blockchains.
- **Nix (open source)**: A package manager and build system used internally to ensure reproducible, deterministic builds across all projects.
- **Project Management & Engineering Leadership**: Obsidian provides engineering management, risk communication, and technical leadership on complex engagements.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available (private company)
- **Key Metric**: No publicly disclosed revenue; estimated to be a profitable consultancy with high-profile clients.
- **Notable Clients and Partners**: Tezos Foundation (built Kiln, Tezos Baking/Wallet apps), IOHK (Cardano infrastructure), Groq (hardware/software support), Formation (marketing analytics), CBMM (brain research), law enforcement screening tool for mental health diversion.
- **Growth Signals**: Continued work on major blockchain and AI hardware projects; active hiring for Software Engineer and Software Project Manager roles (as of mid-2025).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Deep Haskell & Formal Methods Expertise**: Obsidian’s stack choice (Haskell, Nix) enables correctness guarantees and security that are difficult to achieve with mainstream languages.
- **Reproducible Infrastructure**: Nix guarantees that every build, demo, and deployment is deterministic, eliminating “it works on my machine” problems.
- **Client Track Record**: Successfully delivered high-stakes projects for Tezos, Groq, IOHK, and others, often at the bleeding edge of blockchain and systems programming.
- **10-Week Delivery Model**: A disciplined process from ambiguous brief to production software, with clear timelines and proactive risk communication.

## Strategic Focus
- **Deepening Haskell & Nix Ecosystem**: Investing in open source stewardship and tooling improvements.
- **Blockchain & Decentralized Systems**: Continued work on proof-of-stake blockchains, ledger apps, and smart contract infrastructure.
- **High-Assurance Systems**: Expanding into regulated industries (healthcare, finance, government) where correctness and security are critical.

## Why Work Here
- **Engineering Culture**: Values depth, precision, intellectual honesty, and ownership. Engineers own their work completely and are expected to understand root causes rather than treat symptoms.
- **AI Policy**: Engineers may use AI tooling but are fully responsible for the output—no outsourcing judgment.
- **Work Environment**: Main office at 19 W 21st St #503, New York, NY 10010. Preference not stated as fully remote, but team likely works onsite/hybrid.
- **Interesting Problems**: Clients bring unsolved, novel challenges; engineers get to work on everything from hardware wallets to real-time analytics for brain research.
- **Open Source Commitment**: Contributing to and stewarding libraries in Haskell and Nix communities.

## Sources
1. [Obsidian Systems website](https://obsidian.systems/)
2. [Obsidian Systems /careers](https://obsidian.systems/careers)
3. [Obsidian Systems /about](https://obsidian.systems/about)
4. [Obsidian Systems /jobs](https://obsidian.systems/jobs) (redirects to Ashby)
5. [Obsidian Systems jobs on Ashby](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/obsidiansystems)

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