About the CTO role
A Chief Technology Officer (CTO) owns a company's technology vision and makes sure engineering execution serves business goals. They set the technical strategy, make or approve major architecture decisions, and build the engineering organization that ships the product. The role combines deep technical judgment with executive responsibility: budgets, hiring plans, vendor decisions, and accountability to the board for uptime, security, and delivery.
The shape of the job changes dramatically with company stage. At an early startup, the CTO often writes code, designs the first architecture, and hires the founding engineers. At a scale-up or enterprise, the role shifts toward strategy, organizational design, and managing engineering leaders. A strong CTO knows when to go deep on a technical decision and when to delegate, and can translate technology tradeoffs into language the rest of the executive team can act on.
In your posting, be explicit about the stage of your company, the size of the current engineering team, whether the CTO is expected to be hands-on with code, and who they report to. Mention the major technical challenges ahead, such as scaling, replatforming, or security certification. Candidates at this level self-select heavily based on scope and mandate, so vague postings attract the wrong applicants and repel the right ones.
CTO job description template
Job brief
We are looking for a CTO to lead our technology strategy and engineering organization. You will own the technical vision, guide architecture and platform decisions, and build a team that ships reliable software quickly. Working alongside the CEO and executive team, you will translate business objectives into a technology roadmap, manage engineering budgets and vendor relationships, and be accountable for security, scalability, and delivery. To succeed in this role, you should combine strong technical depth with proven experience leading and growing engineering teams.
Responsibilities
- Define and communicate the company's technology vision and multi-year technical roadmap
- Make or approve major architecture, platform, and build-versus-buy decisions
- Build, lead, and scale the engineering organization, including hiring senior engineers and managers
- Align engineering priorities with product and business goals alongside the executive team
- Own security, reliability, and compliance posture across systems and infrastructure
- Manage the technology budget, cloud spend, and vendor and tooling contracts
- Establish engineering standards for code quality, delivery process, and incident response
- Evaluate emerging technologies and decide where they create real business advantage
- Represent technology to the board, investors, customers, and partners
- Develop engineering leaders and plan succession for key technical roles
Requirements and skills
- Proven experience as a CTO, VP of Engineering, or senior technology leader
- Track record of designing and scaling production systems and cloud infrastructure
- Experience building and managing engineering teams through significant growth
- Strong understanding of software architecture, security, and modern development practices
- Ability to translate business strategy into technical priorities and back again
- Experience owning budgets, vendor negotiations, and build-versus-buy decisions
- Excellent communication skills with technical and non-technical audiences
- BSc or MSc in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
Nice to have
- Experience in our industry or with a similar product and business model
- Prior experience as a founder or early technical hire at a startup
- Experience with due diligence processes for fundraising or acquisitions
- Public speaking, technical writing, or an active presence in engineering communities
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