Job description
Chief Technology Officer - Player/Coach for a PE backed scale-up (Remote UK/Europe)
Company Overview
ClickTech is a global AdTech and EdTech company empowering the next generation of digital entrepreneurs. Through our award-winning suite of advertising tools and our flagship platform ClickTech HUB, we make AI, digital marketing, and entrepreneurial education accessible to everyone — from freelancers and small business owners to agency leaders and ambitious professionals.We already support over 50,000 businesses in 135+ countries, and we’re just getting started.We operate two business models: A stable legacy partnership: where we’re one of Microsoft’s largest partnersOur main growth focus: ClickTech HUB + Omni AI, a subscription product helping solopreneurs and individuals learn how to use AI and apply it to online marketing/business growth We’re PE-backed with long-term investors and are scaling from ~50 people to ~100 over the next 12 months. The goal: aggressive scale without the wheels falling off.
Job Summary
We’re hiring a full-time CTO to replace our interim CTO.This is a role for an entrepreneurial builder-operator: curious, driven, commercial, and technically credible. Someone who can run a high-performance engineering org, stay close to the product, and introduce just enough operational structure (release/incident/standards) to increase reliability and predictability—without creating bureaucracy.In the early months you’ll be hands-on (“player/coach”)—close to architecture, delivery, and unblocking. Over time, as the company scales, you’ll transition into more of an org-scaling CTO while keeping a builder mindset.
Success looks like…
In the first 90 days
- You deeply understand the product, users, unit economics, and the real bottlenecks behind incidents
- You’ve implemented a lightweight release/rollback discipline that reduces avoidable production issues
- Engineers feel clear on what “great” looks like (standards) without feeling slowed down
- Communication during incidents is calm, fast, and trusted across the business
In 6–12 months
- Incident rate materially down; reliability is no longer a recurring leadership concern
- Predictable delivery against OKRs (without heavy ceremonies)
- HUB retention and conversion are positively impacted by better quality, fewer regressions, and faster iteration
- The org scales smoothly from 50 → 100 with foundations that enable speed (not process for process’ sake)
Key Responsibilities
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1) Technology & delivery leadership
- Own Engineering and DevOps/SRE (data/security ownership to be shaped as we scale)
- Keep the Microsoft legacy model stable and well-supported
- Drive the build-out of ClickTech HUB + Omni AI into a broader ecosystem (education → gamification → creator marketplace → remuneration engine)
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2) Reliability and “foundations for scale”
Our biggest pain points today are release reliability, quality/reliability, and delivery predictability (without heavy process). You’ll:
- Introduce pragmatic release management (lightweight but real)
- Establish incident management and clearer comms during issues
- Improve testing discipline (coverage and the right tests in the right places)
- Strengthen observability and bug-clearance focus
- Set practical standards (checklists + automation where it matters)
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3) People + performance
Continue building a high-performance culture: high ownership, high throughput, high standards
- Increase ownership and accountability across pod leads / team leads
- Coach, develop, and retain strong engineers in an autonomous environment
- Partner tightly with SLT (Head of Product, CMO, CFO) and be a strong voice in quarterly priority setting
- Org note: we have a VP of Engineering; this role will partner closely with them. Current intent is that the VP Eng drives tech quality, while the CTO owns people leadership and org performance, delivery outcomes, and alignment with founders/SLT.
Requirements / Qualifications
The kind of CTO who thrives here
- Entrepreneurial and commercially-minded: you care about CPA, retention, profit
- A credible technical leader who can go deep when needed (architecture, debugging, delivery unblocking)
- Comfortable in a scale-up (roughly 50–250 people) where speed and ambiguity are real
- Strong opinions, loosely held: you move fast, learn fast, and iterate
- You can implement lightweight operating rhythm that improves delivery predictability without bureaucracy
- You lead with ownership, clarity, and trust—not control
Experience that maps well
- Ex-founder / ex-agency owner / startup CTO / product/platform scale-up leader
- Track record improving reliability and release quality in a fast-moving environment
- Experience building subscription products and/or platforms with payments and partner integrations
Our stack (current)
- TypeScript across the stack
- NestJS (backend), Next.js (frontend)
- Vercel Enterprise (web), AWS + Kubernetes (backend scale)
- Postgres / MySQL
- Integrations: payments, Microsoft, and a growing set of AI tools
- CI/CD is strong; testing needs work; observability exists and needs sharper operational discipline
Red flags (this role will feel wrong if…)
- You’re a corporate “middle manager CTO” who leads via committees and process
- You avoid accountability for measurable outcomes
- You need a slow, methodical environment with heavy upfront planning and perfect specs
- You don’t enjoy being close to the product and occasionally getting your hands dirty
Preferred Qualifications
- Bonus: experience with marketplaces, creator payouts/rev share/CPA attribution, gamification mechanics, or multi-modal AI product work
Location
Remote-first (UK/Europe-based) with monthly in-person days in the UK (typically Manchester, 2 days)
Employment Type
Full Time
Salary & Benefits
Compensation: £150k base + bonus (structure to be agreed, tied to delivery)
Application Process
Interview(s) with: Interim CTO, Head of People & Culture, Co-FoundersWe’ll assess both: (1) technical depth + decision-making, and (2) culture fit in a high-autonomy, high-accountability environment
