The CTO hire sets the technology direction for everything after.
Retained CTO search for founders, boards, and scale-ups across Pakistan, Canada, and the United States. Partner-led, confidential, and rigorous enough to justify the weight of the decision.
The cto market — the honest version.
We run CTO searches for three common situations. A founder replacing a technical co-founder who is transitioning out. A Series B board hiring their first external CTO after the founder-CTO steps into a different role. A scale-up or enterprise entering a new market where a local CTO is needed. Each situation requires a different pool and a different positioning narrative — which is why we intake deeply before sourcing and calibrate with the board or founding team before writing a single outreach message.
What we actually screen for.
Every cto candidate goes through a structured technical screen conducted by an ex-engineer recruiter before you see their profile.
- Technology vision articulation — can they explain a three-year bet in writing that a skeptical board would sign off on
- Build-vs-buy judgment — their history of choosing what to own and what to integrate
- Engineering organization design — team shapes, hiring plans, and org architecture they've authored
- Investor + board presence — can they present technology strategy at the board level with credibility
- Hiring ability — who they have personally hired, who became the next generation of senior leaders
- Commercial fluency — unit economics awareness, GTM partnership history, pricing sensibility
How we run a cto search.
Weeks 1–2
Intake + positioning
Founder / board intake. We write the candidate-facing narrative before we source — a CTO who won't join without a clear story of why you matter is a CTO worth having.
Weeks 3–6
Confidential market mapping + outreach
80–200 mapped candidates. Partner-led outreach, NDA-first disclosure of the opportunity.
Weeks 6–8
Shortlist + written assessments
4–5 candidates with deep written assessments covering vision, track record, and references.
Weeks 8–16
Interviews + offer
Multi-round with founder / board / investors. Offer structure negotiation including equity, cash, severance, and board observer rights.
Real salary bands across our three markets.
- Pakistan (founder-track CTOs at multinationals)
USD $150K–$350K + meaningful equity
- Canada
CAD $350K–$700K + meaningful equity (higher at Series C+)
- United States
USD $450K–$1.2M + meaningful equity (higher at venture-backed scale-ups)
Titles we place under this role type.
- Chief Technology Officer
- CTO
- Head of Technology
- Founding CTO
- Technical Co-founder
CTO hiring — questions we hear.
Both, with different cadences. First-time CEOs get more hands-on partnership during intake and interview design. VC-backed CEOs often want speed and a pre-calibrated candidate slate; we can deliver that when the board mandate is clear. We'll tell you on the intake call which cadence we recommend.
Yes, in most cases. We've placed remote CTOs across PK/CA/US configurations and fully-remote globally. The exception is companies with strong in-person culture or on-site regulatory requirements where remote is a non-starter; we flag this at intake.
180 days for executive placements. If the CTO doesn't work out within that window, we rerun the search at no additional retainer. In practice this happens rarely because retained search calibrates against fit before anyone talks to you.
Ready to run this search?
Submit a brief and a senior recruiter will reply within 24 business hours with a proposed timeline, calibrated fee structure, and sample profiles.
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