Chief Technology Officer (CTO) job description example

Whether you’re a startup or an established company, finding a CTO who simultaneously has the deep technical knowledge, takes leadership responsibility, and understands and develops your business is not easy to find.

This CTO (Chief Technology Officer) job posting can help you find your CTO role. This is based on my experience of how to attract high-caliber executives and at the same time not lose sight of the business strategy.

In general, you should be as specific, concise as possible. Most CTOs have a strong technical background and are therefore like clear and precise statements. Do not try to make the area look better than it is. Rather, be honest about what needs to be done and show how the company would like to change. In this way, you already create a clear image in the job advertisement.

Job Description

We are looking for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to provide good technical leadership for all aspects of our business. As a C-level team member, you will be responsible for all solutions and product creation and operation. You will communicate with employees, customers, and investors to ensure our company’s technologies are used appropriately.

Strategic thinking and strong business acumen are critical in this role. We expect you to be well-versed in current technology trends and familiar with a variety of business concepts. If you are also a strong communicator and public speaker, we would like to meet you.

Responsibilities

• As a member of the C-level team, you will be responsible for building up the technical platform of X to provide a competitive advantage further
• Together with a highly qualified team, you discover and implement new technologies that further drives the company growth
• You will develop the technical roadmap of the company’s strategy to ensure alignment with business objectives while working closely together with the product, marketing, and operational office
• The technical and methodical empowerment of the teams is your
  responsibility. You develop, promote and coach your employees and
  continue the transformation towards an agile organization.

Requirements

• Proven professional experience as a Head of Technology/ CTO or in a similar role
• Strong technical background in the area of X is a plus (name your tech-stack, framework, cloud provider here)
• Deep knowledge of technology trends and how to integrate them into the companies’ strategy
• Leadership and communication skills to retain and attract engineers
• Willingness to provide your knowledge in conference talks

Should education and Work experience requirements be included in the description?

I often read sentences like „The future job holder should have a (technical) university degree in the field of the common STEM fields of study (mathematics, (business) informatics, natural sciences, technology) or comparable education in combination with in conjunction with many years of professional experience.“ With a long list of relevant job experience, the candidate should have. In my experience, the vast majority of candidates have similar backgrounds (whether this is a good thing or not is another matter), which is why I don’t think naming them for such a role is appropriate. Furthermore, it should be part of the role to familiarize oneself with other subject areas.

How to deal with specifics of the company

When consulting with companies for the position, I am more often asked how to deal with its specifics in the job posting. It is advisable to include these in the advertisement and at the same time show the will to change this.

For example, if your company has an ancient technology stack that is getting on in years and you really can’t find anyone to work on it anymore, it will be the CTO’s job to develop and implement a migration strategy. This task is often not very appealing for a CTO who can choose between many offers, as a large part of his working time has to be spent on this in the first few months. This fact should be included in the job description with the company's information is willing to change.
Example:

At the core of our technology is a historically grown monolithic application based on X. Your task will be to convert it into a future-proof technology of your choice

Summary

Whether you are looking for your own company or on behalf of another company, it is important to strike a technologist's tone and pique their interest. In addition to hard business objectives, it is crucial to show what the CTO is working on technically and innovatively. The ad should reflect the company's current situation as truthfully as possible and show how the company wants to position itself in the future. In the industry, you often see CTOs leaving after just a few months. This is often a sign that the position's challenges were not dealt with honestly either in the job profile or in the job interviews. The result is high switching costs. The job description is a good starting point to reduce that frication.