CTPO

Chief Technology & Product Officer (CTPO)

Location: Hybrid, mostly remote, with at least one day a month in London office

Contract: Full-time, 12-month fixed-term contract

Salary: £150,000-200,000

Futureheads have been retained by a long standing client, an amazing purpose-led SaaS business. Their technology helps leading organisations and educational institutions hire and develop people better, faster and more fairly.

This is a player/manager CTPO role. You’ll own product and technology at board level and stay close enough to the work to roll up your sleeves when needed.

You’ll inherit a small, highly capable and well-rewarded team covering technology, product, research and data. The team is spread across the UK, Europe and the US and is ready for expert leadership. You’ll own the team’s day-to-day performance and deliver the technology strategy. With the MD and leadership team, you’ll also shape the product strategy and roadmap.

The Role

• Lead and develop the team, building a culture of clarity, pace, collaboration and accountability
• Turn business strategy into product and technology priorities, and own the tech strategy, roadmap and investment decisions
• Make the key architecture, platform and technology calls
• Run day-to-day delivery: set priorities, allocate resources, remove blockers and keep quality high
• Balance new development with maintenance, tech debt, security and scalability
• Decide when to hire, contract, upskill internally or bring in partners
• Act as the senior technology authority, keeping systems secure, scalable, performant and cost-effective across development, QA, CI/CD, infrastructure, monitoring and incident management
• Spot and communicate technical risks and investment needs, and evaluate emerging tech, including AI
• Get into the detail when it counts: unblock delivery, challenge requirements and review technical approaches

Experience Required

• Prior board experience
• A strong track record of leading technology teams and delivering digital or SaaS products, ideally in a smaller or scaling business
• Real technical credibility across software engineering, architecture and cloud, with the depth to challenge senior engineers and do the work yourself if needed
• Product experience covering roadmaps, prioritisation and turning customer and commercial needs into product decisions
• Experience leading small, high-performing, hands-on teams
• Sound commercial judgement and the ability to make pragmatic decisions with incomplete information
• The ability to explain complex technical issues clearly to non-technical colleagues
• Experience of, and enthusiasm for, embedding AI in product and engineering functions

Additional Things of Importance

• Strong alignment with a social purpose and strong values
• Collaborative, pragmatic, curious and resilient, with high standards and low ego
• Comfortable when priorities shift quickly