Hire a Virtual CTO
Large enterprises and SMEs, as well as startups, require a CTO for hire to provide the business with the best possible technical solutions for the efficiency of software development. CTOs possess immense experience in implementing the latest technology techniques, participate in solving development problems, oversee the research projects, manage the developers’ team, and make sure the project aligns with the client’s needs. In comparison with the IT consultant, who is responsible only for information and computer technologies, the CTO has more roles and responsibilities and closely cooperates with the key people in the company: CEO, Executive Committee members, marketing leaders, and senior developers accordingly. In most cases, big companies need to hire IT consultant, in addition to CTO to improve their business processes.
Who Is a Virtual CTO and How CTO Helps Your Business
A Chief Technical Officer is a person responsible for maintaining the technological needs of the organization, research, and development work. This person works with the short- and long-term goals of the company and decides on the investments which can help to reach business objectives through innovative software solutions.
The list of duties of the CTO can differ drastically depending on the software development teams structure and size:
- In a small company (up to 10 people), the CTO performs the work of a lead manager and senior developer since CTO can also do the coding part of the project.
- For medium companies (10-50 engineers), a CTO is important to create business plan for the company by coming up with the technology tools to assist in the matter.
- In large enterprises (over 50 employees), this person creates a long-term technical strategy, creates and promotes the long-term vision of the company, sets and maintains the technical culture, and participates in hiring software engineers.
For developing a technical vision and strategy, you may need a virtual Chief Technology Officer. This person is able to ensure efficient, profitable, and secure use of technologies without full-time employment. When you hire remote CTO or tech lead, you get an off-site manager, who oversees all the technical assets of your company.
Four cases, when your business needs the help of a virtual CTO:
- You find it difficult to keep up with the technologies in your industry.
- You cannot afford a full-time employee yet.
- You need expertise and opinion that cannot be provided by IT consultant.
- You face tech problems interfering with operations.
Benefits of Hiring a Virtual CTO
So, how can the Chief Technical Innovation Officer improve your business on practice? The first task of this specialist is to consult a startup founder about go-to technologies and clarify all the perspectives. As a result, the business owner makes the right technology decisions aligning with the business objectives.
Find a CTO for your company and get these 5 benefits:
- Objective view. People who work remotely usually have an experience of cooperation with many businesses of different sizes and spheres. They know how to choose the solutions which work, and avoid ones that do not. The specialists have experience of using the company’s resources for collaboration on your issues. To get a technology roadmap and can start implementing it immediately.
- Start of work without training. Hiring people for project work, you get the experienced specialists who can start working immediately and keep your business on the right technology path. Education and certification are handled by the outsourcing company providing you with the specialists.
- Studying your landscape. The specialists conduct a regular audit of the technology infrastructure to step away from old systems that do not function well, attract the corresponding candidates to work with chosen technologies and create plans for the future. Such strategic and tactical decision making helps to develop your business.
- Taking user-first decisions. The experienced officers take the importance of the user into consideration when selecting and implementing new technologies. And when the business and customer objectives are well defined, the productivity and return of investments grow.
- Implementing new technologies. Quite often, businesses hesitate to implement new technologies as they consider changes to bring threats and drawbacks. The CTO will help you to stay ahead of new technologies, keep an eye on the trends and turn opportunities into strategies.
Many big corporations are already hiring virtual CTOs and get their benefits from it. Ziprecruiter demonstrates about 48,000 job openings for this position. Among the companies looking for specialists are Microsoft Corporation, Unisys, Deloitte, DOWL, Evergreen Healthcare, and others. They all prefer cooperating with remote professionals instead of hiring the in-house ones.
Chief Technical Officer Responsibilities in the Company
The roles of the Chief Officer are customized based on the company’s goals and technical project expectations. But we can distinguish a standard set of responsibilities performed by a CTO:
- Monitor and access new technologies. The specialist should be technologically aware to advise the senior executives and help them to make the right strategic decisions. In many startups, this person is expected to identify high-risk and high-return technologies within the existing business.
- Build strategic innovation. The officer can develop a strategy when the company creates new products and needs new technologies and when it is time to move the old core product to the rails of more efficient technologies. That’s the way technical vision complements the business vision.
- Create a mergers and acquisitions strategy. These involve financing, governmental, taxation, corporate culture, and technological planning.
- Conduct marketing and media relations. The technical officer conducts the technical information and product details into the information that can be marketed. And the marketing and sales departments use this information to construct the company’s image for the public.
How to Become a CTO on Demand
Becoming a Chief Technology Officer is a career of the dream for many technical specialists. So the Forbes has listed 13 CTO skills even experienced officers should improve and develop, and we’ve picked 5 most important requirements to become a decent CTO.
- Strategic thinking. While UX designers, developers and PMs are focused on the separate details of the product, the CTO should keep in mind the common goal, meaning that they monitor all processes.
- Communication. The specialist should have experience in communication with business and technical staff within the company to be able to negotiate properly.
- Coding. Although the chief specialist usually doesn’t take part in development, coding skills will help to evaluate the work of the developers.
- Customer service and communication. The company can provide the customer with the perfect service only if you know for sure, what do customers exactly need.
- Mentorship. As a leader, the CTO should have experience in mentorship to help the team raise proficiency.
To be in the highest demand on a market, the chief officer should confirm the expertise with IT management certifications. These certifications will vary depending on the technology stack and methodology the specialist uses. Chief Technology Officer certification can be in the field of project management, big data, data science, cloud technologies, agile, etc. Among the top certifications are:
- CAPM – Associate in Project Management
- CGEIT – Governance of Enterprise IT
- CSM – ScrumMaster
- CISSP – Information Systems Security Professional
- ITIL – Information Technology Infrastructure Library
- Six Sigma Certification
- CompTIA Project+
Chief Technology Officer Resume Sample
How Much Does It Cost to Hire Remote CTO
The average CTO salary depends on several factors: skillset, experience, number of the certificates of the professional, location. If you cannot find an appropriate candidate for in-house work, it’s a high time to find out, what do other countries offer according to the information from PayScale:
- The UK – $133,026 per year
- The US – $163,349 per year
- Ukraine – $30,000 per year*
- Switzerland – $164,607 per year
- Germany – $117,906 per year
Software consultant rates remain affordable and will allow the company to save money.
*Ukrainian salaries are provided based on Mobilunity’s Recruitment Team research on the local job markets. All salaries are net and do not include the service fee (in case of hiring on a dedicated team model). The salaries are provided for comparison purposes and could be not entirely accurate. Contact us to know the exact cost of hiring a developer corresponding to the required parameters.
Where to Find a Startup CTO
If you are looking for a remote Chief Technical Officer – pay attention to the Ukrainian specialists. Ukraine is one of the most suitable outsourcing and outstaffing destinations for European, American, and Asian countries.
Startup founders and business owners choose Ukrainian CTOs when they need:
- Solid expertise. All the specialists have huge experience in coding, managing and mentoring. You can easily find the one that suits you the best.
- Convenient location. You can easily reach Ukraine from almost any part of the world.
- Innovative approach. The specialists have strong knowledge of existing and emerging technologies and know which is the best for the particular business.
- Competitive price. Because of the lower cost of living, Ukrainian specialists can make the same high-quality work at lower rates.
How to Hire a Virtual CTO for Your Organization
When you’ve decided your business is ready to hire a virtual CTO, it’s time to think about a good strategy to hire the right candidates. With so many different hiring platforms and a large influx of virtual CTO workers for hire, it can be challenging to find candidates that tick all the right boxes when it comes to skills, experience and budget. Let’s now explore some of the most important steps to consider when hiring on demand CTO candidates.
- Determining requirements
Before investing completely in the hiring process, it’s important to determine your business’s unique needs for CTO workers. You want to be sure that you know exactly what type of candidates you want to hire and the hiring route you need to take to find the ideal prospects. Consider the size and type of project or tasks you have, your own team’s capacity and the size of the budget you have available.
- Choosing the right platform
From global freelancing platforms to local outsourcing vendors, there are so many different hiring sources to choose from. The important part of figuring out the right solution for hiring on-demand CTO candidates is the level of skill required from them, the ease of the hiring process and the budget and timeframe available. Typically, hiring platforms make it easy to hire CTO candidates remotely, but it can be difficult to accurately confirm their skills. The hiring process can also be a lengthy one because everything is done by you. Outsourcing vendors are structured in a way to effectively offer solutions that usually include all the hiring steps. But keep in mind that some of them can be slightly more expensive compared to doing everything yourself.
- Scanning resumes
Obtaining resumes is one of the easiest ways to verify the skills, experience and education of candidates. It is easy to do some research online to see what the ideal resumes of CTO candidates should look like. This makes it easier to spot good resumes from candidates and hire a CTO that matches all your requirements.
- Ask the right questions
Part of the process to hire virtual CTO candidates successfully is to include an interview phase in the hiring process. Asking the right questions can help to identify if candidates have the relevant knowledge and project experience you are looking for. Before hiring a CTO, you can research some of the best questions to ask to determine if you will rent a CTO that matches your requirements.
- Including a test phase
When you’re looking to find lead developer CTO experts, it is important to include one or more tests that are similar to the type of project you require. This way, you get an idea of the way the job applicants work and if they are suitable candidates for your requirements. It may be necessary to include a few test stages to determine if the applicants can handle different scenarios.
- Successful onboarding
Once all the previous steps have been completed, it’s time for the onboarding of workers. This is an essential step to ensure all workers are successfully integrated into your business and are familiar with its processes and structures. The onboarding phase can be challenging when done by yourself. When working with a hiring company, the onboarding is typically included and a much smoother process for everyone involved.
If your business is looking for CTO hire solutions that include most of the steps mentioned above, an outsourcing vendor such as Mobilunity is the right option. Mobilunity is a global provider of dedicated workers. The company specializes in providing skilled and experienced virtual chief tech officer candidates to businesses around the world. The hiring and onboarding processes are handled by the Mobilunity team, saving businesses valuable time and money.
Why Mobilunity Is the Best Company to Find a CTO Software Engineer
The question of how to find a CTO to build an app may become the challenging one, especially for a small team or a startup. That’s why in Mobilunity we do our best to provide companies with virtual team members, which will make sense for your business. With the virtual CTO, you get on-demand support when you need it.
Approaching Mobilunity is the best way to find a virtual CTO software engineer with exceptional technical expertise. Our clients get:
- Ability to hire remote CTO with experience in your specific industry.
- Proactive team members who provide suggestions on how to utilize new technologies and improve efficiency.
- Help in making IT and management decisions.
- Unbiased technical consultations for your business questions.
If you need to hire a virtual CTO that will improve the development processes in the company – you are welcome to contact Mobilunity. Empower your business today!
All salaries and prices mentioned within the article are approximate NET numbers based on the research done by our in-house Recruitment Team. Please use these numbers as a guide for comparison purposes only and feel free to use the contact form to inquire on the specific cost of the talent according to your vacancy requirements and chosen model of engagement.
