Chief of Staff to the CTO

The Chief of Staff (CoS) to the CTO is a force multiplier for an Engineering organisation of 800+ people. You will design and operate mechanisms that help the CTO, Engineering Leadership Team (ELT), and Engineering execute with clarity, speed, and alignment.

In this position, you’ll

Strategic Partnership

• Serve as a trusted advisor, sounding board, and force multiplier to the CTO, providing advice and guidance on strategic, operational, and organisational matters within the engineering function.
• Acts as a delegated authority of the CTO, representing the CTO in executive forums and making decisions within an agreed scope.
• Operate with the highest degree of trust and discretion, handling sensitive information and internal dynamics responsibly and confidentially.
• Own incubation and early-stage scaling of new strategic initiatives, shaping multi-quarter transformation programs before transitioning them into durable ownership.
• Facilitate resolution of high-stakes cross-functional tradeoffs where Engineering priorities intersect with other functions.
• Anticipate the CTO’s information needs - connecting dots across teams, surfacing emerging issues early, and framing options before they become problems.
• Prepare the CTO for key meetings and decisions by summarising context, tradeoffs, and data-driven insights.
• Serve as acting operator for the Engineering function in the CTO’s absence when required.

Operational Excellence

• Ensures the Engineering function’s operating model evolves in line with the company strategy over a multi-year horizon.
• Identify and redesign critical Engineering systems (e.g., onboarding, planning, performance management) to scale with organisational growth.
• Own high-impact organisational transformations (e.g., re-orgs, capability shifts, structural redesigns) across the Engineering function, ensuring durable structural and cultural outcomes.
• Own the architecture, governance, and continuous evolution of Engineering’s performance and organisational health systems, ensuring data drives executive-level decisions.
• Own the design and continuous evolution of the Engineering Leadership Team operating model to ensure strategic clarity, decision velocity, and accountability at scale

Communication

• Define and drive the communication strategy and cadence for Engineering, ensuring clear, consistent, and timely messaging to the wider organisation and external stakeholders. This includes designing and bringing to life strategic alignment mechanisms (e.g., offsites, function-wide forums, all-hands).
• Own Engineering’s executive-level narrative and reporting to executive-level stakeholders, shaping how the function’s performance, risks, and strategy are represented (e.g. QBRs that the CTO presents to the GLT.
• (Co-) author key documents on function-related topics, based on high-level instructions and discussions with the team and stakeholders.

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in engineering, strategy, or operations, including experience operating at Director or equivalent scope within complex organisations.
• Demonstrated experience leading organisation-wide transformations in 500+ person environments.
• Experience developing and delivering strategic initiatives in an engineering context.
• Experience influencing C-level stakeholders and operating in executive governance forums.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills - able to synthesise data, monitor key metrics, and translate insights into actionable frameworks.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to effectively convey complex information to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Proven leadership and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work collaboratively and build relationships across all levels of the organisation.
• Strong business acumen, with the ability to understand and align data and analytics initiatives with business objectives.
• Sound judgment and adaptability - able to decide when to escalate, when to act independently, and when to push for clarity.
• Equally comfortable in spreadsheets, docs, and conversations - able to switch from structured analysis to nuanced interpersonal discussion seamlessly.

• The opportunity to benefit from our share options programme
• 25 working days of holiday
• Newest MacBook models
• Free access to an office gym
• Digital mental and emotional health support and Employee Assistant Program (EAP)
• Home office support: we provide IT workstation equipment and a personal budget of up to 540 for home workplace furniture
• Private health insurance
• On-site canteen serving delicious homemade food at friendly prices
• Frequent team-building events
• A personal monthly budget for shopping on Vinted
• The opportunity to spend up to 90 days per year - 21 of which can be spent working outside of the EU - on workation
• A dog-friendly office