Technical leadership searches, for roles such as CTO, VP Engineering, Head of AI, Head of Product, Head of Data or cybersecurity leaders, sit in a different category to many other senior appointments, both for the candidate and the client company. Technical leaders change the way that businesses operate. In leadership hiring, appointing the right leader is critical, and getting it wrong is far more expensive than the search to appoint them! Three things set these searches apart:
- Candidates are visible (usually!) and likely to be in employment, so approaches need to be discreet
- Confidentiality is often important, as clients may be planning significant growth, raising investment, replacing an existing leader, or building a capability which hasn’t yet been signalled to the market
- Motivation is complex, since at these levels of appointment salary is less of an influence (although always important!), with timing and role mandate the key differentiators for candidates
Defining the mandate
The starting point in any leadership search is agreeing the role mandate, and for technical appointments this requires careful consideration. It’s possible that a company thinking it needs a CTO actually needs a VP Engineering (for discipline and focus on delivery), or that a search for a ‘Head of AI’ should focus on a leader with a more applied approach, rather than a pure research mindset. Before approaching candidates, it’s essential to be clear on the decisions this leader is accountable for and, equally important, the decisions that sit with founders or the board. Before any candidates are engaged, the client and the search partner should agree on:
- Team structure and reporting lines: what the current organisation looks like, and how you would like to see it evolve
- Company maturity: how developed your tech function is (be that engineering, product, data etc.), and what leadership approach fits best with the company stage and culture
- Remuneration: what package (cash and equity) the role can offer to attract the right candidates
- Success profile: what needs to change (or continue), and who you would want this person talking to, within the business and externally
- Success in 6-12 months: what success in the role would look like, and what change this hire should enable
Getting this wrong will impact the calibre of candidate engagement. Senior candidates will respect searches that can answer these questions and, equally, rule out searches which can’t. A vague answer on equity or reporting lines is usually the point where a strong candidate politely steps away.
Calibrating on type and stage-fit
In EvoTalents’ experience, stage-fit is often more important for leadership hires than the role title itself. Leaders can struggle moving from large businesses to start-ups without the structures and processes they’re used to, and equally, leaders who thrive in early-stage ‘chaos’ can struggle in more structured business environments. A CTO who scaled a 300-person engineering organisation may find a team of twelve frustrating, and the reverse is just as common. When defining a technical leadership hire, the calibration covers role mandate, responsibilities and the seniority required:
- CTO recruitment: a role focused on technical strategy, leadership of the tech organisation, ownership of technology and architectural direction, and leading the building of great products alongside product and wider stakeholders
- Head of AI / Head of Data search: applied, delivery-focused technical leaders with in-depth knowledge of AI models or data and experience leading technical teams
- VP Engineering / Engineering Director search: leaders focused on engineering org design, delivery, hiring, retention and managing managers
- Technology company CEO / COO / CFO / CMO search: strong leaders in their discipline who understand technology companies and products, and can engage credibly with technical teams
- Cybersecurity / platform leadership search: senior, credible technical leaders with a clear mandate, strong stakeholder relationships, ownership of tech risk and a mature approach to their technical domain
Depending on the role mandate and seniority, good C level recruiters will then work alongside you to consider your ideal profile for the search, both in terms of experience and technical strengths. That profile then becomes the reference point for every conversation with the market.
Technical searches are confidential by nature
Most executive search and headhunting for technical leadership roles is confidential from the outset, and candidates can be reticent to have a conversation that starts with “are you interested in this job?”. Rather than advertise, C suite executive recruiters will agree a success profile with the client, then create a leadership talent map of target companies and likely candidates, before conducting confidential research and approaching the most likely candidates discreetly. This enables a conversation about the market, rather than a pitch for the role. Confidentiality is therefore a practical challenge for search, involving knowing how and when to share role detail, agreeing with candidates what they can and can’t tell colleagues, and managing the process with discretion. A leadership search typically includes:
- Role mandate and success profile agreement
- Calibration on company stage, to agree the ideal leadership type
- Creation of leadership market maps, including target companies and candidate identification
- Confidential research on the leadership market, identifying skills and experience, remuneration and equity ranges, and common patterns in candidate backgrounds
- Calibration with the client on findings, as it’s often at this stage that the findings lead to recalibrating the role (and sometimes the role title!)
- Discreet candidate approach
- Creation of a longlist and shortlist of candidates, with insights on motivation, availability and remuneration expectations
- Candidate and interview management, through to offer stage
Technical leadership roles, particularly in areas such as AI, data, cybersecurity or platform, evolve quickly, so it’s common for the mandate or role profile to be tweaked after a leadership market map has been completed and the insights shared, to improve search outcomes. Motivation, along with remuneration insight, comes back again and again as a critical success factor in searches. Alongside any misalignment within the client company (founders vs board members, existing investors and so on), uncovering these factors late in a search leads to more failure, and expensive failure at that!
Search for technical leaders is an important investment for businesses. It’s critical to get these appointments right, and as such, the searches require more rigour and consideration. A leadership search that takes a few extra weeks to get right is still far cheaper than a wrong appointment. Appointing technical leaders changes how the business operates, and influences all future hiring!
