Tips for How to Hire a CTO

Whether you’re the founder of a startup or just starting your business, finding the right CTO, or "Chief Technical Officer," is one of the most important decisions that you will make to create a well-functioning and effective development team. We know that it can be overwhelming to search through CTO candidates if you aren’t sure exactly what you are looking for, so we have put together a brief guide to help you hire a CTO for your business!

To help you in your search through CTO candidates on EliteBrains, we have outlined some of the main roles, key responsibilities, and skills that a CTO should have in order to be a useful addition to your company. Furthermore, building off of our extensive experience working with companies and startups who have come to EliteBrains to hire a CTO, we have included advice for how to make your search easier and ensure that you find the right person for your company. 

Main Roles of a CTO

The role of the Chief Technology Officer is often seen as the big picture thinker for the technological direction of the company, project, or startup. They are someone who takes the role of directing and strategically planning the growth of the technological direction of the company. In order to do this, the CTO should have a comprehensive understanding of the technologies of the business they are working for and also new technologies that the business or startup could use to succeed.

The CTO plays the role of being in charge of the technology team in the company. Due to their tech expertise and talent, the CTO role is often one of the leaders in a development team. They take the highest technology executive position within a company and make important decisions for the team. This is one of the factors that makes them an invaluable part of the development team.

Taking this into consideration, it makes sense why it can be intimidating to find someone to fill the CTO position. However, don’t feel too overwhelmed! Hiring a CTO using EliteBrains you can search through a talented set of candidates that will make hiring a CTO easy and straightforward. You can start with filling the form here.

Key Responsibilities of a CTO

Here are some examples of common responsibilities to consider when you want to hire a CTO. The Chief Technology Officer is responsible for a wide range of complex tasks that can vary depending on the goals, size, and type of company. They build technology based products and services, research innovative software solutions and manage the development team.

The Chief Technical Officer should be responsible for finding good talent for the team, be able to answer any technical question during the product development process, and have a comprehensive understanding of the operating systems used by the company they are working for. The CTO can be responsible for strategic planning for the technical direction of the company, and some CTO’s are also responsible for taking on customer relations and helping to deliver IT projects to the market. 

The exact responsibilities of a CTO can vary depending on the need of the company, however these are some of the common responsibilities that are expected when hiring a CTO. 

Common Skills of a CTO

Considering how essential the Chief Technical Officer position is to the development team, it is important to understand the skills that they should possess in order to be the best addition to your business. Here are some skills that can help you to hire a CTO for your job. 

• Ability to quickly learn and integrate new technology
• Have an innovative business perspective and business acumen
• Expertise and leadership qualities
• Experience as a product manager and team manager
• Advisor to lower level developers on the team
• Good communication skills and people skills
• Work experience and tech talent
• Skilled in the design and architecture of products
• Know the difference in software development methodologies 
• Knowledge of the IT market and new technology
• Have history of working as an IT manager 

These skills are important in finding the right person for the job. One question that we often get is -how do I know that the developers can actually perform what they say in their job listing? To make sure that the CTO is up for the task, there are ways that you can ensure that the CTO is experienced enough during the interview process. For instance, here at EliteBrains we test candidates on their abilities when they join the platform. When you use EliteBrains, you can know that when you hire a CTO that they have a level of technical expertise in order to offer their services through EliteBrains. This makes the process of hiring a CTO smoother and easier for you.

See the list of available CTOs here.

How to Hire a CTO in a Startup

In startups, the CTO plays a much more involved role in the day-to-day operations. The startup CTO covers much more ground than their corporate counterparts in order to get the ball rolling until the business is off the ground. A startup CTO should have experience in. 

• Building the MVP (minimum viable product) 
• Hiring Programmers, IT professionals, data scientists
• Security policies, rules, and training
• Application architecture and app design
• Quality assurance procedures
• DevOps: deploying, setting up and scaling servers that run consistently
• Team growth, good communication abilities, and history as a IT manager
• Experience in a tech startup setting
• Meeting your goals and needs in a timely manner

Similar to a corporate environment, the startup CTO manages technology while also hiring and managing teams, finding and implementing innovative a software solution, and imparting technical knowledge to the company. The CTO is the technical guide in an increasingly technology-based world. Whether you are looking for a Startup CTO or to hire freelance CTO's, EliteBrains can help you to find someone that will be great for your team. Finding the right CTO for your startup can seem intimidating, but with EliteBrains you can find a CTO candidate that will be perfect for your needs!

How to Hire a Freelance CTO

Hiring a freelance Chief Technology Officer is, without question, the best investment for small organizations and companies. A freelance CTO comes with many benefits, including the ability to find an appropriate specialist in your industry and hiring temporarily at lower rates.

A freelance CTO can further support a firm by:

• Analyzing technology trends
• Establishing a business strategy and pathway forward
• Optimizing internal company processes
• Sharing knowledge and experience
• Identifying tech stack and picking the best technology for development
• Being an advisor to other members in the project team

A freelance CTO wears many hats and is an asset to bring more value to a growing business. They take responsibility for the technical aspects and find the best solutions and practices to support the business. When you and your co founder need to hire a CTO, choosing a freelancer CTO can be a good option, especially for smaller companies.

Hire a CTO for your Company  

There are many factors that make it difficult to hire a CTO that will be the best fit for your business. A CTO needs to be able to work and connect with all areas of the business. From marketing, finance, human resources, and operations, the CTO is expected to bring technological experience that works towards a common goal shared by everyone in the company. All of these things can be hard to find in one person, however EliteBrains offers steps and a network that can help you to find the right candidates that meet the needs of you and your company. 

One piece of advice that we often give to people who are looking to hire a CTO on EliteBrains is that you have a clear job description at the beginning and to know exactly what you and your co founders are looking for in your business. Many companies rush to hire the first candidate before they know their needs or business goals, which can cause problems later on in the process. Having a straight-forward job description is one way that you can ensure that you hire a CTO that is well-suited for your project. When it comes time for you to hire a CTO, EliteBrains is a great place to start your search.

EliteBrains offers top-line freelance CTOs and web developers as a service to scale and grow a startup or small company. We provide on-demand experts matched to your industry and specialty. We make it easy, cost-effective, and risk-free to hire a CTO and find the best developer for your software projects.

Part-time, Full-time, Contract Aleksey Sundukovskiy Los Angeles 12+ years

• #Software development
• #Managing teams
• #Software architecture

Contract, Part-time, Full-time Haidar Khazen Austin, Texas 20+ years

• #Tech leader
• #Software architecture
• #System integration