How to Hire a CTO for a Startup

First, you need to determine exactly who you need, based on the tasks that need to be solved.

In today's world, launching a startup almost always involves turning an idea into a working digital product. Depending on your product type and its current stage of development, you may need specialists with fundamentally different competencies.

If you don't yet have a finished prototype that you are eager to scale, then you need a Founding Engineer.

The main task of a founding engineer is to quickly build a prototype and efficiently modify it to fit constantly changing requirements. This role requires a strong technical background, extensive experience in various areas of software development, and broad exposure to the technical implementations of different products across various tech stacks.

When searching for a candidate, be sure to pay attention to their experience in building products from scratch and bringing them to production. Such specialists often have highly diverse backgrounds: for example, their backend development practice might alternate with roles as an architect, DevOps-engineer, full-stack developer, or security expert. The broader the range of roles within their engineering background, the higher the likelihood of their success in delivering the prototype.

However, it is important to consider the smoothness of transitions between specializations. Chaotic job-hopping and short tenures in each role may indicate opportunism and superficial knowledge rather than a broad perspective.

Profile of a Successful Founding Engineer:

• At least 10 years of experience in commercial development;
• Professional mastery of at least two technology stacks;
• A successful track record of developing and launching products from scratch into production;
• Knowledge and experience in information security are highly desirable.

Once you have passed "phase zero", built a viable MVP, secured your first investment, and begun expanding your team to accelerate growth, you will need to fill a new role: an Engineering Manager.

This new stage in a startup's lifecycle brings a mountain of worries to the founder's plate. Managing a development team (which usually consists of 3 to 7 people at this stage) requires a leader who can manage these resources effectively. You might call them a CTO, but let's be honest: the correct title for this role is an Engineering Manager.

This specialist's area of responsibility is an efficient development process. System architecture, infrastructure integrity, general coding standards (or their deliberate absence), and, of course, direct people management—these are the key areas they will focus on.

An alternative option, when you need help managing the technical side, is hiring a Fractional CTO (fCTO).

An fCTO provides consulting services in technological development on a temporary or part-time basis. Specialists at this level are valuable for their expertise in strategic planning and their ability to look at processes from the outside—working "on" the system rather than getting routinely bogged down "in" it (working on the business, instead of in it).

You can hire such a specialist on a part-time basis. They are available for a quick start, saving you from spending months on traditional recruiting. This format perfectly solves the lack of strategic skills within the development team and significantly saves budget compared to hiring an expensive full-time CTO.

A specialist at any of the levels described above will spend a significant portion of their time aligning business needs with development processes. Each will do so to varying degrees, but this is an undeniable fact. It is this bridge between business and technology that unites them and gives any of them the right to be called a startup's CTO.

When hiring a CTO for a startup or scaleup, you are essentially looking for one of these three specialists. Be honest with candidates about what the acronym "CTO" actually means in your company. This will simplify communication and drastically increase your chances of finding the exact professional your business needs right now.