CTO As a Service / Interim CTO (BF01CTO)

Objective & context

• Take the role and responsibilities of a CTO in a SaaS business company
• The company must be delivering a service or a solution highly relying on the delivery of a product/SaaS solution (not a CIO :))
• Usually company size is between 50 to 120 people with about 20% of staff on Product / Tech activities
• Company has successfully passed a funding round and now a VC is on the board, usually driving the need for an Interim CTO (hiring takes time 🙂 and VCs have only 4 to 5 yr for their exit so every month counts).

Usual Missions

• Roadmap execution
  • Usually there is a reporting / execution issue: the roadmap is unclear and / or the deadlines are never met
  • Release Management & QA are usually poorly addressed: no clear dates communicated in advance, no testing from a functional perspective resulting in multiple incidents in production
  • Tech roadmap is not addressed nor considered or a too big « let’s make everything from scratch » migration project is ongoing

• Organization & Processes
  • Tech / Product are usually not well organized (No fixed teams for example: PO, SM, Dev & QA)
  • Support processes & maintenance are often disregarded
  • Most of the time going offshore will be required to keep costs at a sensible level and to be able to manage a mid-term seasonality in the roadmap
  • Contribute to HR processes: recruitment, appraisals & layoff plans

• Business mind
  • When acquired by a VC, there is always an M&A, acquiring a local or foreign company, requiring change in culture : this has a huge impact on the organization, the mindset, the offer & the product
  • Participating to RFPs, answering security questionnaires and providing supporting materials to Sales is usually also key
  • Building budgets over 2 to 3 yrs (cf. timeline for VCs to exit)
  • As an option, participating to the board and being able to report at the board

Advisor to CxO

As a side / add-on to Interim CTO, there is usually a CxO level individual to support the changes implied by the VC arrival or the lack of CTO
In that case, the mission is about coaching or supporting a CxO in a peer relationship, being his « spin doctor » and helping shine from behind the scenes.

Skills

• Time Management
• Ability to report
• Fluent Business English
• Any modern web technology stack
  • .NET / Java / Python
  • Databases
• Level 3 Support
  • Troubleshooting
  • Organization & process
  • Relationship with CSM/SEs or Level 2 support
• Architecture understanding
  • Design patterns & principles
  • Modeling skills (UML / E/R diagrams)
  • Ability to express a design using diagrams & schemas
• Product/Program Management
  • Skills related to requirements lifecycle management
  • Mastering Agile concepts using JIRA (or equivalent)
• Financials & budgeting
  • RFPs
  • Roadmap definition with Staffing & costs (not the « WHAT »)

Soft skills

• Management (hierarchical as well as non-hierarchical)
• Leading by example & leading from behind approaches
• Customer & business minded
• Public Speaking in French & English
• Long-term vision as well as ability to chase results on a weekly basis

Experience

• Offshore teams selection, followup & contract management
• International context with subsidiaries across different countries
• M&As participation & TechDD
• Long-term roadmap execution management : 2 to 3 years projects/ programs minimum
• Hierarchical as well as transversal team management

Industries

• AssurTech
• FinTech

More

• Freelancing contract