Job description

About the Opportunity

This is a founding technology leadership role with a premium, design-led consumer business in London’s pet wellness space. The company is growing across multiple sites and is aiming to reshape its category through a strong product and brand experience. The CTO will work directly with the Founder to create the technology function from the ground up.

This is a highly hands-on position rather than a classic executive CTO seat. The right person will be comfortable writing code, designing systems, solving technical challenges and building products before gradually shaping and growing the team around them.

Role Scope

Technology will sit at the centre of the company’s future. You will be responsible for the strategy, architecture and delivery of the platforms that support both customer experience and daily operations across a growing multi-site business. In the early stages, the role will be heavily involved in building, integrating and improving systems. As the company expands, you will hire and develop the engineering team while staying close to the product and technology.

Working alongside the Founder, you will help shape every important technology decision across the organisation.

What You Will Build

Customer booking systems
CRM tools and customer lifecycle platforms
Operational workflows and automation
Payment and POS integrations
Internal tools for day-to-day operations
Data platforms, reporting and commercial insight systems
API connections between multiple systems
AI-supported workflow improvements
Cloud infrastructure, security and scalable architecture

Every solution should improve the customer journey, operational effectiveness or business performance.

What We Are Looking For

The business is seeking someone who has personally built products and platforms, rather than only leading teams that do the work. A strong background in software engineering and architecture is important, along with experience scaling technology in a startup or other fast-growing environment.

Experience building systems for multi-site consumer businesses is highly relevant, especially within retail, hospitality, healthcare, leisure or similarly complex operational settings. The ideal candidate will also have worked closely with founders or entrepreneurial leadership teams and has previously grown engineering teams after starting as the hands-on builder.

Above all, this person should genuinely enjoy creating technology. If a new product idea appears, the natural response should be to start building it immediately.

Who This Role Will Not Suit

Senior technology executives with a mainly corporate CIO background
Leaders whose experience comes largely from consultancy delivery through third-party teams
Enterprise transformation specialists
Technology leaders focused mainly on governance or programme management
People who have moved away from hands-on engineering
Executives who primarily manage suppliers rather than build products

Why Join

A founding technology leadership opportunity
The chance to design and build the technology platform from the start
Direct collaboration with the Founder
Strong influence across the wider business
Meaningful equity participation
A fast-growing premium consumer brand with ambitious expansion plans
The opportunity to help shape a category-defining business where technology is a real competitive edge

The Ideal Person

You are an engineer first and a leader second. Your progression into leadership has come from building excellent products, not from stepping away from technology. You perform best in founder-led environments, enjoy solving complex technical problems and like turning ideas into products that customers use regularly. If you prefer building over administrating, this role is likely to be a strong fit.

Compensation

The package on offer includes a salary of £110,000 to £125,000, plus additional benefits and meaningful equity.

Location

The role is based in London and is predominantly on-site.

Founding Chief Technology Officer