A CTO, or Chief Technology Officer, is the executive accountable to the CEO and the board for the company's technological capabilities: what it builds, how fast, at what cost, and with what level of risk. In 2026, this mandate includes a decision the role did not carry three years ago: the role of coding agents in product engineering, and the framework governing them.

Adoption is no longer up for debate. According to Google's DORA research, published on September 23, 2025, surveying nearly 5,000 professionals, 90% of software professionals already use AI—up 14 points in a single year. According to the Stack Overflow survey published on October 6, 2026, with over 30,000 respondents, coding assistants and agents represent the dominant use of AI, and 73% of their users rely on them every day.

When the tool is ubiquitous, what sets two companies apart is no longer the tool itself. It is the organization receiving it. DORA puts it in one sentence: AI acts as both a mirror and a multiplier. In a coherent organization, it boosts efficiency. In a fragmented organization, it magnifies weaknesses. A CTO's primary job is therefore to make the organization coherent before giving it more power.

This article answers the questions asked by founders, board chairs, group HR directors, and VC/PE funds: which CTO for which stage, what they now arbitrate, how to evaluate them, and how to conduct the search. It is written by Sam Lozinguez, Tech & AI Partner at Laroze Partners, an executive search firm for tech and AI leaders. Recruiting is simply the consequence of a governance decision.

Definition. CTO (Chief Technology Officer): the executive responsible for technology strategy, architecture, engineering teams, and product delivery. The role differs from the CIO, who manages internal systems, the VP of Engineering, who leads team execution, and the Chief AI Officer, who arbitrates AI use cases across all business functions. In a mid-sized company, one person often wears several of these hats.

Key Figures to Know

Why This Matters Right Now

Three time-stamped facts are shifting the nature of the role. Sentiment is favorable toward the tool: 62% of all respondents in the Stack Overflow survey view AI at least somewhat favorably, rising to 71% among daily users. No one is pushing back, so no one is setting rules: that is precisely where the CTO's role begins.

The tool has become production infrastructure. Coding assistants and agents are the dominant AI use case in the Stack Overflow survey, and nearly three out of four users employ them daily. For a board, this means an increasing share of the product is being built with a tool whose usage guidelines, vendors, and costs are dictated by the CTO.

Performance hinges on the organization, not the tool. DORA characterizes AI as a mirror and a multiplier, identifying one key capability that amplifies its positive effects: a clear and communicated AI stance—meaning a framework that tells engineers how to use it, with which tools, and with what support. Lacking a framework produces two opposing pitfalls: excessive caution, or the adoption of unvetted tools. Defining this framework is an executive technology decision before it is an engineering decision.

Costs are becoming variable. Among the cost-control measures reported by the Stack Overflow survey, 38% set usage limits and 28% review spend data. In a model where compute is consumed on a pay-per-use basis, the CTO becomes one of the leaders responsible for a cost line that fluctuates every month.

Three misconceptions persist.

"The CTO must be the best coder on the team." They must be technically credible, which is entirely different. In The Pragmatic Engineer's survey, senior engineers adopt agents the most (63.5%), ahead of managers and team leads (46.1%). A CTO who does not use them personally loses the ability to evaluate what their teams report.

"AI reduces the need for a senior CTO." It shifts it. The more powerful the tool, the more crucial the framework surrounding it becomes. Tool providers sell individual productivity. Company-wide performance remains an organizational matter.

"Individual productivity drives collective performance." DORA frames AI adoption as a systems problem, not a tooling problem. Over 80% of respondents state that AI has improved their productivity. That says nothing about how this productivity translates into actual product delivery.

Three Roles Under One Title

The CTO title encompasses three distinct roles. The board must know which one it is looking for.

The third profile is sometimes conflated with a Chief AI Officer. The difference lies in the scope: the CTO governs the company's technical capabilities, while the Chief AI Officer oversees AI use cases across all business functions, including those that do not involve software development. In a scale-up where AI is the product itself, both roles overlap and are held by the same individual.

CTO, VP of Engineering, CIO: Who Does What

The split between CTO and VP of Engineering is one of the most critical governance decisions in a scale-up. When a founder is the CTO, hiring a VP of Engineering is often the first sign that the organization needs an executive dedicated to execution and delivery, allowing the CTO to focus on architecture and long-term technical vision.

What the CTO Arbitrates Today: Four Decisions

1. The role of agents in engineering. Which tasks are delegated to agents, with what degree of human oversight, using which authorized tools, and what level of verification for generated code. DORA articulates the underlying principle: a clear, understandable, and widely shared framework. In the Stack Overflow survey, 93% of respondents state they need cited sources to trust AI outputs: trust is built on traceability.

2. Compute cost and margin. AI spend is not a static budget line. For high-growth AI companies, first-year gross margins hover around 25% according to Bessemer, compared to 76% for the median public software vendor according to Clouded Judgement. A CTO who does not know the per-customer cost of what they build cannot defend a business plan before a board.

3. Organization and skills. Who trains whom, what role junior engineers play, and what role managers have. In The Pragmatic Engineer survey, managers use agents less than senior engineers do: the CTO must ensure that those setting the rules actually understand the tool. According to IBM, 85% of CEOs believe every functional leader must become a tech expert in their domain: upskilling applies to executive leadership as well.

4. Reliability and security. A product built in part by agents inherits their flaws. The CTO sets the bar: code reviews, automated testing, traceability, and shared accountability with the CISO. Trust is earned through verification, and verification takes engineering time: the CTO arbitrates between velocity and assurance, and answers for it.

What This Requires Across Executive Roles

Two roles warrant deeper focus.

The CFO. The CTO and the CFO are now partners on a previously nonexistent challenge: variable compute costs. A board presented with two conflicting narratives regarding product margins quickly realizes the two executives are not measuring the same expenses. A shared reporting dashboard—broken down by product and customer—eliminates the debate.

The CHRO. When part of the codebase is generated by agents, junior onboarding, interview rubrics, and engineering career ladders must be overhauled. A CHRO left out of the CTO's strategic planning will find out about the transformation only after it has already occurred.

The Scale-Up and PE-Backed Perspective

In a scale-up, the CTO question emerges the moment the architecture and engineering teams must scale. The technical founder, often the CTO, built a product no one else knows as intimately. Bringing in a platform-focused CTO or a VP of Engineering raises the question of what role the founder takes next. In France, according to the EY barometer of October 7, 2026, software and AI accounted for 59% of venture capital raised over nine months (€5.1 billion): a massive cohort of companies in this sector is now hitting that exact inflection point.

Research on founder succession—including Noam Wasserman's study of 212 US startups (Organization Science, 2003)—identifies the completion of product development as one of the two milestones that most frequently trigger a CEO transition. Our reading is that the same milestone often challenges the founding CTO: once product development stabilizes, the role shifts from building things to sustaining them over the long haul. The sample is older and US-focused, illustrating an organizational dynamic rather than an absolute rule for 2026.

In a private equity-backed company, the CTO is hired to execute the value creation plan. The sponsor expects a direct link between the technological mandate, product margins, and the exit horizon. A CTO who cannot present unit costs per customer and a clear gross margin trajectory will struggle to stand their ground before an investment committee.

What the Board Must Demand from the CTO in Year One

A CTO is judged on observable deliverables, not announcements. Four checkpoints are sufficient.

A written AI usage framework that every engineer can cite. It outlines which tools are approved, for which tasks, under what review processes, and with what support. This is what DORA calls a clear and communicated stance.

A cost breakdown by product and customer, co-owned with the CFO, showing gross margin and its evolution over time. Without it, the board cannot distinguish between value-creating growth and compute-burning growth.

A clear, documented split of responsibilities between the VP of Engineering, the founder, and the Head of Product: who decides what, and where boundaries lie. It must be approved by the CEO and not reopened on every new project.

An upskilling and training plan that includes managers: if the leaders setting the policies use the tools less than the engineers executing them, the organization is flying blind.

Common Pitfalls

Seeking a technical genius without defining the mandate. The best individual engineer is rarely the best CTO. The mandate must come first: architecture, scaling, or organizational transformation.

Confusing the CTO and VP of Engineering. Hiring a CTO when the actual need is an execution-focused delivery leader creates tension with the founder and leads to a poorly managed department.

Allowing AI adoption without a framework. DORA highlights both extremes: excessive hesitation or unvetted shadow tools. In both cases, leadership has abdicated decision-making.

Ignoring variable compute costs. A product whose gross margin deteriorates with every new customer cannot be salvaged through top-line growth.

Hiring a CTO who does not use modern tools. They lose both their ability to evaluate engineering reports and their technical credibility with the team.

Neglecting alignment with the technical founder. When a founder was the previous CTO, their role following the new hire must be put in writing before the first interview even takes place.

How to Evaluate a CTO

1. What major architectural decision did they push through against their team's initial consensus, and what was the outcome? The answer reveals technical conviction versus passive authority.

1. What AI adoption framework did they introduce, and how did they secure buy-in? A candidate who talks only about tooling rather than governance has not yet operated at an executive level.

1. Can they break down the unit cost per customer of what they built, and show its trajectory over two years? A CTO who has never tracked this has not shared margin ownership with the CFO.

1. How did they structure their working relationship with a technical founder or VP of Engineering? They should be able to articulate a documented operational split with unambiguous boundaries.

1. How have they adapted team topology and processes since coding agents entered the workflow? The response clarifies whether they understand that the core challenge is organizational, not technological.

How a CTO Search Unfolds

Recruiting is the output of careful scoping. It follows six stages.

1. Define the leadership archetype alongside the executive team: architect, scaling lead, or transformation driver, including the interface with the VP of Engineering.

2. Clarify the founder's ongoing role post-hire, especially if they are the departing technical lead.

3. Map active executives in the market via direct headhunting with strict confidentiality. Top candidates are currently employed and do not respond to job postings.

4. Conduct trajectory-focused interviews, concentrating on tradeoffs around architecture, cost, and organizational design, rather than a laundry list of technical stacks.

5. Run 360-degree reference checks with founders, board chairs, and CFOs who have watched the candidate make high-stakes calls.

6. Structure the year-one roadmap alongside the CFO, CPO, and CISO, setting unified, shared objectives.

At Laroze Partners, executive searches for tech and AI leaders—including CTOs—are led by Sam Lozinguez, Tech & AI Partner. Every engagement begins with step one, never with a generic list of names.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a CTO?

A CTO, or Chief Technology Officer, is the executive responsible for technical strategy, architecture, engineering teams, and delivery. They answer to the CEO and board for the velocity, economics, and risk profile of the company's product technology. With the rise of coding agents, they also arbitrate how automation is woven into engineering workflows.

What is the difference between a CTO and a VP of Engineering?

The CTO defines technology strategy and architecture. The VP of Engineering oversees the day-to-day organization, execution, and delivery of engineering teams. In early-stage startups, the CTO often handles both. Hiring a VP of Engineering typically marks the moment when the organization needs dedicated operational structure.

What is the difference between a CTO and a CIO?

The CIO runs internal information systems: enterprise IT, tooling, and business security. The CTO builds the product technology sold to external customers. In large enterprises, both collaborate closely. In growing scale-ups, the CTO frequently oversees both scopes initially.

When should a scale-up hire a CTO?

When technical architecture and headcount must scale rapidly—typically around Series B—or when the founding CTO can no longer balance architecture, delivery, and team management simultaneously. A clear telltale sign is when technical decisions bottlenecks exclusively at the founder level.

How do you recruit a CTO?

Through a six-step process: identify the profile needed, formalize the founder's role, map passive leaders via direct search, conduct trajectory interviews, cross-reference past performance, and structure year-one milestones. A specialized tech executive search firm steps in following initial scoping to engage leaders who do not browse job boards.

Does a CTO need to code?

They must be technically credible and equipped to judge what their team reports, which requires hands-on familiarity with modern tooling. In The Pragmatic Engineer survey, senior engineers adopt coding agents at higher rates (63.5%) than engineering managers (46.1%). A CTO who lacks direct experience with these tools loses their ability to lead with technical authority.

What is the typical salary for a CTO?

We do not publish fixed salary bands, given the lack of consistent public benchmarks for executive-level roles in France. Compensation packages vary widely depending on the profile, company maturity, valuation, and equity components, and are structured on an individual basis for each search.

Key Takeaways

• AI is now deeply established among developers: 90% adoption (DORA, September 2025), and 73% daily use among users of coding assistants and agents (Stack Overflow, October 2026).

• The CTO is no longer choosing a tool, but designing a coherent organization: DORA describes AI as both a mirror and a multiplier.

• Four key decisions sit with the CTO: agent integration, compute economics, organizational capabilities, and system reliability.

• The title covers three distinct roles: Architect, Scaling Leader, or Transformation Driver.

• Recruitment is the final step: define the mandate, establish the founder's role, and document the AI governance framework first.

The Laroze Partners Perspective

The market often treats the CTO search as a hunt for pure technical acumen, when it is fundamentally an organizational challenge. Once the strategic mandate is set, the founder's role is established, and the AI governance framework is codified, identifying the right leader becomes clear, and candidate evaluation can center on verifiable past decisions. When those foundations are missing, even the most brilliant engineer will struggle in a poorly defined role.

The Laroze Pattern®—our proprietary framework for evaluating career trajectories, leadership behaviors, and performance dynamics—allows us to analyze how a CTO has made decisions when the stakes went beyond raw tech: margin trade-offs, founder co-leadership, or rolling out frameworks to hesitant teams. These defining moments are always visible in an executive's track record.

The companies that secure a lasting competitive advantage from AI in product engineering will not simply be those that adopted the tooling earliest. They will be the ones whose leadership deliberately established, ahead of time, who governs its role.

Sources

Stack Overflow, "The results of the 2026 Developer Survey are here," October 6, 2026 · Google, "How are developers using AI? Inside Google's 2025 DORA report," September 23, 2025, and DORA, "Clear and communicated AI stance" · The Pragmatic Engineer, "AI Tooling for Software Engineers in 2026," March 3, 2026 (906 respondents) · IBM, Annual CEO Study, press release dated May 4, 2026 · Bessemer Venture Partners, State of AI 2025 · Clouded Judgement (Jamin Ball), August 21, 2026 · EY, Venture Capital Barometer, October 7, 2026 · Noam Wasserman, Organization Science, 2003.