All Decisions
April 2024 accepted

Hire for Ownership, Not Just Technical Output

hiringleadershipownershipteam-building
Context

Earlier founder experience showed me that a small team cannot succeed if every important decision depends on one technical leader. In a CTO role, hiring has to focus not only on skills, but also ownership, judgement, communication, and the ability to operate with ambiguity.

Options Considered

Hire for Technical Depth Only

Prioritise candidates with the strongest technical skills and most relevant tools experience

Pros
  • Strong execution
  • Clear technical signal
  • Useful for specialised work
Cons
  • May not own outcomes
  • Can create dependency on managers
  • May struggle with ambiguity

Hire Broad Generalists

Prioritise flexible people who can work across many areas

Pros
  • Adaptable
  • Useful in startups
  • Can switch between priorities
Cons
  • May lack depth
  • Can create uneven standards
  • Harder to scale complex work

Hire for Ownership and Judgement

Assess technical skill together with decision-making, communication, autonomy, and product thinking

Pros
  • Builds leadership capacity
  • Improves delivery ownership
  • Reduces dependency on CTO
Cons
  • Harder to assess
  • Requires better interviews
  • May take longer to hire
Decision

Chose ownership-first hiring. I look for people who can explain trade-offs, communicate clearly, take responsibility for outcomes, and make good decisions with incomplete information.

Consequences
Oct 2020

Earlier work relied too heavily on personal execution instead of building enough independent ownership around the product

negative
Apr 2021

The lack of distributed ownership made the project more fragile when priorities, time, and pressure changed

negative
Jun 2025

Interview processes later became more focused on real working behaviours and problem-solving style

positive
Feb 2026

The team became more capable of moving without constant CTO-level intervention

positive