From Pre-Seed to IPO, which Type of CTO does Your Company Need?

There's 10 types of CTOs, those who understand this joke and those who don't. Which one are you, and which one does your company need?

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It took me 15 years to understand a key aspect of the tech world: there’s no such thing as a “startup CTO”.

For years, recruiters have approached me about "startup CTO" positions, and for years, I had to decline since I’m not the early stage startup CTO they were looking for.

The tech world glorifies the technical cofounders, and not having the skills to be one of them has been my biggest career frustration.

As I was taking over more responsibilities as a Systems Engineer, I understood that there are multiple types of CTOs, depending on the company's maturity. If I could not become a “startup CTO”, then I would become an executive in a more advanced company.

I like to break down the kind of CTOs following the startup funding rounds, from pre-seed to IPO. They are usually when key responsibilities evolve, and CTOs get replaced.

So, what type of CTO do you think you are, and what type of CTO does your company needs?

Pre-Seed / Seed Stage

Companies at the pre-seed or seed stage don't need a CTO but a technical co-founder. The skills and qualities expected from a technical co-founder are different from what you expect from a CTO.

The Technical co-founders' role is to build a product from scratch and iterate super fast to find product market fit.

I've listed the 5 main qualities you should look for in a technical co-founder:

• Full stack technical execution: They'll build the MVP with limited resources.

• Resourcefulness and autonomy: They must build on a budget and make efficient tradeoffs all the time.

• Ability to iterate super fast: They must test hypotheses and pivot based on user feedback, so working code is better than clean code.

• Product and customer focus: More than at any later stage, pre-seed startups must understand if there's a real market need for what they're building, or die.

• Resilience and grit: Finding PMF is hard, requires working long hours 7 days a week, and determination to move forward despite setbacks.

Series A to Series B

Series A is when the technical cofounder transitions from a hands-on builder to a leader.

A Series A startup CTO’s main focus is to shape the company’s tech foundations. They’re not building an MVP anymore, but a product that’s gaining traction and being sold to real customers.

The 5 main qualities I’ve seen from Series A startups CTOs are:

• Scalability mindset: They’re not scaling yet, but Series A CTOs need to design systems that handle growth while ensuring technical debt won’t slow progress.

• Hiring and team leadership: Series A CTOs must beggin hiring and leading engineers. They define the engineering culture and bring some structure for efficiency.

• Process and execution discipline: as the engineering team grows, Series A CTOs start implementing agile methodologies, CI/CD pipelines and clearer engineering roadmaps.

• Business and product alignment: Many startups fail because of co-founders misalignment. The CEO and CTO must align to prioritize what drives revenue and traction.

• Investors communication: Post-Series A CTOs are expected to communicate and defend their technical strategy with investors, while preparing the company’s Series B round.

Series B to Series C

Companies that raise Series B rounds are expected to have found their market. They are now winning customers from larger companies in their fields, even though they can’t be considered real challengers yet.

At Series B, the company is scaling aggressively, and the CTO's role shifts from building to structured leadership and long term strategy.

The five key qualities expected from a post-Series B CTO are:

• Scalable Architectures and Reliability: They ensure systems can handle rapid growth while optimizing for performance, security, and uptime.

• Organizational leadership and delegation: They build a strong engineering leadership team, and reduce key-people dependency. This is when most CTOs delegate engineering management to a VP of Engineering.

• Cross Functional collaboration: Collaborating with other departments doesn’t start after Series B, but as the company is being structured, working with Product, Sales, and Marketing aligns technology with business objectives.

• Metrics-driven execution: They establish KPIs, track engineering efficiency, and (most important), monitor and optimize costs.

• Investor and board level communication: Post-Series B CTOs need to present a clear technology vision, demonstrate ROI, and ensure alignment with growth strategy.

Series C to Series D

At Series C, the company is in hyper-growth mode. It is often expanding to new markets, building new products, and preparing for potential M&A or IPO.

A post-Series C CTO’s role is strategic and operational at scale.

Meeting CTOs of startups that raised a Series C round taught me a lot about the skills they need, and writing code is no longer part of them.

• Enterprise grade scalability: They ensure infrastructure can handle hyper-growth, regulatory compliance, and enterprise security standards.

• High-performance culture scaling: Post-Series C CTOs need to manage large, global engineering organizations, while preserving agility and innovation.

• Strategic Technology Vision: They drive long-term R&D investments, explore new trends, and ensures global technology policy adoption. That’s the coolest part of the job NGL.

• Operational and financial efficiency: They optimize infrastructure costs, balance speed vs. sustainability, and ensure a data-driven approach to structuring engineering decisions.

• Executive and board-level influence: They engage with investors, presenting a compelling technology roadmap, and prepare for IPO or major exits.

Post-Series D

At Series D, the company is a market leader or pushing towards IPO.

At that stage, most technical cofounders or early stage CTOs have left the company, even though some exceptions happen: Darmesh Shah kept his role as Hubspot founding CTO until the company’s IPO in 2014.

The CTO is now a top-tier executive, balancing technology, operations, and business strategy at a global scale.

The key skills of a post-Series D CTO are:

• Enterprise-scale stability and security: They ensure systems are resilient, compliant with global regulations, and capable of handling massive user bases.

• Executive-level leadership: They drive company-wide strategic decisions, collaborate with CFO, CEO, and COO on IPO readiness, M&A, or global expansion.

• Operational and Financial Discipline: Post-Series D CTOs manage tech budgets in the hundreds of millions, optimize infrastructure costs, and justify every major tech investment against future revenues.

• Long-term innovation and R&D strategy: They balance execution with future bets, like AI, automation, platform evolution, to keep their competitive advantage.

• Public & Investor Relations: They represent technology to shareholders, media, and analysts, building confidence in the company’s long-term vision.

IPO and Beyond

At IPO, the CTO is no longer just a technology leader but a public company executive, balancing innovation, governance, and shareholder expectations.

The five key qualities expected are:

• Enterprise-grade stability and compliance: They must ensure tech infrastructure is bulletproof, compliant with global regulations (SOX, GDPR, etc.), and resistant to security threats.

• Strategic & Visionary Leadership: They define the long-term technology roadmap to keep the company's competitive advantage post-IPO.

• Operational & Financial Rigor: They manage engineering budgets with public company discipline, ensuring efficiency and accountability.

• Investor & Public Market Communication: They communicate with investors, analysts, and the board to demonstrate technology’s role in revenue growth.

• Global Talent & Culture Management: They work with HR to retain top engineers, scale leadership, and prevent innovation slowdown in a corporate environment.

There’s a long journey from technical co-founder to public company CTO, which most people won’t make. There’s one key skill common to every type of CTOs: knowing at what stage of the company you start bringing value, and when you should step down.

Whether you're building an MVP or leading a global engineering organization, recognize that the "startup CTO" is not a single role but a spectrum of responsibilities that grow with your company. Matching your strengths to your company's maturity stage is the key to both personal fulfillment and organizational success.

Thank you for reading! See you next Tuesday when we'll talk about one deadly mistake (amost) every scale-up does.