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Tips on Hiring a CTO

2 points by aproductguy ↗ HN
So we are an early stage startup. Lost our original dev team (1 bacnded + 1 front end) during the lockdowns (they are alive, we just had to let them go) but have recovered, and looking to hire a CTO. Problem is, none of us (founders and execs) know how to hire one. Any tips on how we can find and qualify prospects?

5 comments

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[dead] chovybizzass
https://angel.co is a good place to post. Also it sounds like your "CTO" role is just a full stack engineer with a fancy title. You should be upfront about that.
[dead] osipov
i've done this twice for my companies: if you shoot me an email to my username at google's mail service we can connect
sjg007
Ask yourself who is CTO you seek?
manquer
Consider

   - how much money you are ready to spend on the new guy.  
   - how long he and you expect to work together. I.e you want some one for next couple of years to build and setup everything, do you expect him grow and mature with you .
   - CTO is a glorified role in a start up especially early on. At this point you are more likely to need a hands on senior dev who has strong product sense and can run a team and ready to gets hands dirty on code.
The role will drastically change in a couple years if your startup grows. The skills required are vastly different when it 20-30 member team and it changes again at 150-200 .

There are few people who will fit at all stages. Either they should be able to grow or be able to step down few roles today.

So plan accordingly for the new hires to replace when skills don't fit with what equity you would give today and later on etc.

On skills you should consider today somebody who knows the stack , is ready to code, has architecture vision , can be quick and dirty if required but prefers to keep the code clean as possible and is flexible on the resources you are able to give, loves building products.

nickmyersdt
Ask yourself what you want the CTO to help your business achieve and over what time period. CTOs differ heavily based on what the business actually needs at its stage of growth. Do you need someone with hands on, deep specialist knowledge, or someone with broad generalist knowledge, or someone who is very well connected. Don't look for unicorns, look for someone with either proven experience in doing what you need, or get a recommendation from someone you trust.