In a move to rein in the workload of Juan Benitez, Braintree has announced via blog post that it has officially hired a stand-alone CTO. Benitez has been pulling double duty as both Chief Technology Officer and General Manager.
John MacIlwaine will be formally filling the role.
“In this role, John will lead all aspects of product development, including Engineering, Product Management, Design, and Production Engineering, all of which will continue to drive our technology efforts forward. John joins us from Lending Club, where he was CTO, leading its product development for the past four and a half years,” Benitez wrote in the blog post that announced the new hire.
Benitez has been playing the dual role at Braintree for almost three years — after originally joining up five yeas ago as CTO. But a lot has changed — PayPal bought Braintree, most notably — and the firm has clocked 25 times growth in payment transactions from Q2 2013 to Q2 2016.
The time, Benitez noted, is now for a dedicated CTO.
For his part, MacIlwaine seems happy to step up to the plate.
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“I’m excited to be joining the team of a leading payments company whose longstanding commitment to putting customers first has enabled them to maintain an innovative culture while scaling globally to meet customer growth and demand,” he said in a statement. “The two-sided platform that only Braintree and PayPal together can deliver is unmatched and has always stood out to me. I’m thrilled to leverage this unique value proposition to continue helping merchants around the world grow and succeed.”
