UK, Europe, USA
CTOs assess the leaders who will own your architecture, engineering organisation and delivery.
Technical screening by developers and CTOs is included.
We recruit CTOs, VPs of Engineering and Heads of Development with direct input from experienced CTOs. The assessment covers technical judgement, team leadership, delivery discipline and the ability to connect engineering decisions to commercial goals, including fundraising, pitching, client demos, certifications, compliance and audits.
When to hire a CTO or VP of Engineering: A first senior technology leader. Leadership for a growing engineering team. A replacement or succession hire.
Leadership briefs vary by company stage. We separate genuine technical depth from presentation skills and match the assessment to the decisions the hire will own, including commercial conversations and compliance responsibilities where the role requires them.
Our CTOs ask candidates to critique a real architecture, identify its likely scaling limits and explain when they would keep a monolith instead of introducing services.
We ask how they would design safe deployments, respond to a production incident and decide which security or reliability work must interrupt the roadmap. We also test whether they can drive certifications, compliance programmes and audit readiness without turning process into theatre.
We test how they structure teams, assess senior engineers, challenge unrealistic deadlines and communicate technical risk to founders, boards and product leaders. We also assess whether they can support fundraising conversations, pitch the technical vision clearly and run credible client demos without overselling capability.
Technical leaders need to make difficult decisions with incomplete information, give and receive direct feedback, develop other engineers and remain accountable without hiding risk from founders, boards or teams. We also assess whether they can support fundraising, pitch the technical vision clearly, run credible client demos and own certifications, compliance and audit readiness.
A leadership CV is only the starting point. Our CTOs test how candidates reason through the situations they will face in the role.
Architecture trade-offs, risk management and the ability to challenge weak assumptions.
Hiring plans, team structure, management systems and healthy engineering culture.
Roadmap confidence, technical debt decisions and communication with founders or boards.
Fundraising support, investor pitching and client demos that explain technical capability without overselling.
Certifications, compliance programmes, audits and the operating discipline needed to evidence them.
Tool names are not enough. Across every role, we look for technical depth, disciplined use of AI and an honest approach to solving unfamiliar problems.
We keep asking why and how until we reach the underlying behaviour. Candidates should understand what their framework, runtime, database, browser, cloud service or design tool is doing for them, how they work behind the scenes (and why), and how they would investigate a failure without relying on copying fixes from ChatGPT.
We expect candidates to use AI productively, but never as a substitute for judgement. They need to explain how they verify generated code, designs and tests, protect confidential data, catch unsafe assumptions and remain accountable for the result. We expect them to use MCPs, skills, and goals. So basically - we are looking for structured AI-assisted work, not vibe coding, vibe designing or vibe testing.
Strong candidates have a can-do mindset and will investigate, experiment and learn when the answer is not obvious. At the same time, they are fair and transparent about what they know, what they have not done before and when they need support.
Give us a few details about the role and your hiring plans. We'll assess your needs and get back to you with a practical next step.
Our recruitment team works alongside experienced CTOs and senior developers. Technical leadership candidates are assessed by people who have made architecture, hiring and delivery decisions themselves.
Yes. We adapt the interview to the role, including architecture discussions, technical deep-dives and practical leadership scenarios based on the decisions the candidate will own.
Yes. Where relevant, we assess how candidates support fundraising, pitch the technical vision, lead client demos and own certifications, compliance programmes and audit readiness.
We recruit across the UK, Europe, and the USA, with access to additional talent networks in the Middle East.