Every tech startup with ambitions to scale will need to appoint a Chief Technology Officer - or CTO. 

As a tech startup or scaleup founder, the CTO role is one of the most important roles in your early stage hiring journey. It's a pivotal role for a scaling startup and one that can make (or break) your startup's success.  

But the battle for the market's top talent is a fierce one, meaning that the path to finding and onboarding someone who has that shared entrepreneurial passion and strategic vision isn't always an easy one. 

In this article, we'll look more closely at the role of tech startup CTO, what the role entails and whether you're at the stage where you should consider hiring a CTO for your tech startup.  

So what exactly does a startup CTO do? 

Firstly, there isn't an exhaustive list of CTO duties. These will invariably differ from startup to startup. But broadly speaking, the CTO is the person responsible for ensuring that the tech you're building and your technology strategy continues to meet your business objectives and priorities. 

As the most senior tech hire within your startup, your CTO should be both a key decision-maker and a strategic planner. As well as responsibility for establishing your technical solution, they will build and implement your scaling strategy. They'll grow your in-house tech capabilities, to ensure that your tech startup maintains its competitive edge and remains technologically sustainable. 

We’ve helped connect several seed-stage startups with technical advisors while helping them hire some mid and senior developers. This won’t mean a CTO isn’t needed at some point, but can be an alternative that helps you move quicker on hiring and gives you a blend of expertise in a cost effective way. 

Without a CTO (or at least a tech-minded co-founder or advisor), your startup may find it challenging to build or expand your core offering without outsourcing. 

We partner with plenty of startups that outsource their tech development to an agency, to build them an MVP or more, and it’s a valid route. With the rise in no-code and low-code platforms you can get a fair way down this journey on your own. But at some point, you’re still going to need to recruit for a CTO. 

It's worth pointing out that the role of a startup CTO is pretty unique - and differs significantly from a CTO role in an established, multinational business. Tech startups and scaleups require an agile, entrepreneurial approach with a rapid rate of experimentation - not least because it's often your adaptability for change and capacity to implement new ideas quickly that will ultimately determine your success. 

What makes a good startup CTO? 

It depends. We’ve hired for scaleups at the Series A stage who need someone who can focus on scalability and efficiency as they hire the key growth stage. The best candidates for that role will be different to the seed stage companies we’ve helped who still need someone who’s happy to dive in and code. 

For a few of the recent CTO hiring assignments we’ve been retained on, there has already been a CTO in place. But what the client has needed from their CTO in the future is different than the role so far. In some cases, the same person will cover both stages, but in many you’ll need a different person. 

When you’ve given your first software developer the title of CTO, the dynamics and politics of hiring someone else into that role as you scale is something to bear in mind – some call it job title debt that perhaps won’t hit you as hard as technical debt but is worth being aware of. 

Almost all CTOs come from technical backgrounds and it’s often the natural progression of responsibility for engineers or other technical professions.  

There are obvious technical skills that you should be looking for, although these will depend on any number of factors: what you are building; the stage you are at; the tech solution you are employing. However, there are some universal skills which you should consider a pre-requisite for your CTO appointment. 

When you’re building a startup, we all know that it’s about hiring the right people, at the right time, for the right positions - they need to be a good fit on paper AND in person. So whilst an experienced CTO might be top of your desirable list, you should also consider candidates wanting to make that step up - people with technical lead experience and a strong background in software development.  

In tech startups, attitude and adaptability are crucial - so don't shy away from discussing the grittiness required to operate in a startup environment. During the early stages, the successful candidate may be the only tech-savvy person in your startup, so they need to be comfortable rolling their sleeves up and getting their hands dirty as a coder. 

They should be a strategic thinker, able to take an architectural view and visualise the 'big picture' in order to achieve a product-market fit. They will have a long-term view of the direction in which your startup is moving and be able to anticipate its tech requirements and prioritise scalability.  

A toolbox of soft skills are crucial and, in this role, managing people is as important as managing processes. They'll need to build their tech team even if they may not be the long term leader of it, so should be comfortable leveraging their professional network to attract the market's top talent. 

Likewise, they need to able to differentiate their communications approach when dealing with various stakeholders - for example, being able to communicate your technology roadmap to investors as you raise your seed round, whilst also explaining to tech teams how business goals drive technical decisions. 

We all know that startup founders are considered the visionary; the leader of the pack; the one with the passion to visualise what your tech startup could achieve in the future. But a good CTO will be a key pillar as you build. They're your innovator - so as well as being a master of all-things-tech, it's your CTO that will help you fine-tune your strategy, tactics, and business goals to push your startup forward.  

Ready to hire a CTO for your tech startup? 

Startup founders not only need to recruit the right team members, but also bring them on board at the right time. So, when should early-stage startups hire a CTO? 

It's certainly a role that will grow, develop and evolve as your startup grows. In the early days, it's not uncommon for a technically-minded founder or cofounder to act as a de facto CTO. Or maybe it’s a title bestowed on your most senior developer. 

But as the role becomes less hands-on, you might want to consider bringing someone in with authority to recruit, regulate and direct other technical employees. 

There are few more critical decisions to make than when best to hire a CTO. Get the timing right and it could be a game-changer to have someone on board who has scaled a similar-sized startup and bring with them a wealth of relevant experience.   

Get in touch 

Recruiting top talent in a competitive jobs market can be a costly and time-consuming process for tech startups and scaleups, but as specialist tech startup recruiters, we can help you find the right CTO for your tech startup business.  

A lot of the founders we talk to haven’t fully appreciated the costs, availability of skills and expertise, lead times to hire a CTO, and variety of options to recruit tech talent at a senior level. If you’d like to talk more about your challenges in this area, get in touch with our co-founder and CEO, Alan Furley at alan@isltalent.com or connect on LinkedIn.