Chief Technology Officer - Player/Coach for a PE backed scale-up (Remote UK/Europe)
Join ClickTech as CTO: lead and scale engineering, own delivery and culture, remote-first UK/Europe, monthly in-person days, £150k base + bonus.
Location: Remote-first (UK/Europe-based) with monthly in-person days in the UK (typically Manchester, 2 days)
Compensation: £150k base + bonus (structure to be agreed, tied to delivery)
Reports to: Co-Founders
Seniority Level: SLT
Team: ~12 in Engineering today, scaling thoughtfully as we grow
About ClickTech
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 partners
Our 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.
The Opportunity
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.
How we work (culture snapshot)
Our culture is explicitly high-performance and outcome-focused:
Act fast, learn faster (speed + iteration over perfection)
Build with impact (outcomes over output)
Own the outcome (high autonomy + high accountability)
Raise the bar, then raise it again
Win together (no ego, strong collaboration)
Obsess over the customer and long-term value (retention and expansion matter)
We work in Pods aligned to company OKRs. Each pod has a clear lead as the final decision maker to avoid committee drag.
Remote-first, flexible hours — but we expect flexibility back when the business needs it (incidents, urgent customer-impacting issues).
What you’ll own
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)
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)
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.
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)
What we’re looking for
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
Bonus: experience with marketplaces, creator payouts/rev share/CPA attribution, gamification mechanics, or multi-modal AI product work
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
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
Interview process
Interview(s) with: Interim CTO, Head of People & Culture, Co-Founders
We’ll assess both: (1) technical depth + decision-making, and (2) culture fit in a high-autonomy, high-accountability environment
- Department
- Development
- Role
- Chief Technology Officer
- Locations
- Remote
- Remote status
- Fully Remote
- Yearly salary
- £150,000
- Employment type
- Full-time
- Employment level
- Executive/Senior Level
About ClickTech
Our mission is to make digital marketing accessible and more cost-effective for all businesses, regardless of size.
Through our network of platforms, integrated partners, and education, we aim to create a meaningful economic impact by helping millions of businesses to succeed online.
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