David runs every Beacon leadership search personally, including VP of Engineering placements.
These titles get used almost interchangeably at early-stage startups, and that's part of the problem. They're genuinely different jobs with different success criteria, and hiring for the wrong one wastes a search and sets the new leader up to fail.
Which one you needOwns technology vision, represents engineering to investors and the board, makes long-range architecture and build-vs-buy bets. Often the more public-facing technical voice of the company.
Owns the engineering organization day to day: hiring, team structure, delivery cadence, and making sure the roadmap actually ships. The person engineers report to and rely on.
At a small company, one person often does both jobs, and that's fine until the company outgrows it. The moment you have multiple engineering teams and multiple managers, the operational load of running the org becomes a full-time job on its own, which is exactly when a dedicated VP of Engineering earns its keep, freeing a technical co-founder or CTO to focus on the external and strategic half of the job.
You need someone to own technical vision, investor conversations, and major architecture bets, and you don't yet have that voice in the company.
Your technical direction is set, but delivery, hiring, and team structure need a dedicated owner because the founder or CTO is stretched too thin.
Most companies eventually need both. The mistake is hiring a VP of Engineering when what you actually need is technical vision, or hiring a CTO-type when what you actually need is someone to run the org day to day. Get specific about which gap you're filling before you write the job description.
A VP of Engineering who's asked to set company-wide technical vision, or a CTO who's asked to run daily standups and performance reviews, will both struggle, not because they're bad hires, but because you hired for the wrong job.
David runs every Beacon leadership search personally, including VP of Engineering placements.
Book a 15-minute call. We'll help you scope the actual gap before you write a job description.
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