CTO hands-on

Licorne Society a été missionné par une startup en pleine croissance pour les aider à trouver leur CTO hands-on.

Join a fast-growing B2B SaaS company reinventing how Europe's largest enterprises negotiate

Location: Paris, France (mostly in-person)

Start Date: Q1 2026

Contract Type: Full-time (CDI)

Compensation: Fixed salary + bonus + equity (BSPCE-equivalent)

Help reshape how billions are negotiated

Enterprise procurement teams negotiate millions every week — yet the negotiation layer remains fragmented, manual, and poorly tooled.

We are building a cloud-based platform that enables large organizations to run eAuctions and structured eNegotiations with speed, reliability, and strong governance. The platform is already used by multiple tier-1 industrial and retail groups and has processed €100M+ in GMV .

We are now internalizing our core engineering and laying the technical foundations for scale. As our first in-house engineering leader , you will take ownership of the core IP and architect the future of a mission-critical B2B product.

Your role

You will be the technical owner of the platform .

This is a hands-on leadership role : you will write production code, make key architectural decisions, and progressively build the engineering function.

You will take over from a strong external development team, ensure a smooth knowledge transfer, and set the company up for long-term product velocity and enterprise-grade reliability.

What you will own

• End-to-end platform architecture (frontend, backend, data, infrastructure)
• Production reliability for real, high-stakes enterprise workflows
• Security, auditability, and data protection for sensitive procurement data
  Engineering standards, delivery cadence, and future hiring roadmap

About the company

We are a Paris-based B2B SaaS startup (team of ~6) combining deep procurement expertise with startup execution speed .

In the past 12 months, we have:

• Built and shipped a high-performance SaaS platform
• Secured €1M+ in projected revenue
• Raised €2M+ from top-tier European venture funds
• Signed multiple enterprise customers and are scaling rapidly

The product is live, used daily, and delivering tangible value — customer satisfaction is one of our strongest signals.

Product & technical roadmap

We have already built 18 types of eAuctions , giving buyers advanced levers to run better negotiations. What's next:

• AI-driven Auction Builder
• A system that reads incoming RFPs and recommends the optimal negotiation strategy — then configures it directly in the platform.
• Smarter automation
• Enhanced auction logic, pricing intelligence, and bidder behavior analysis using optimization algorithms and LLMs.
• End-to-end procurement workflow
• Becoming the central sourcing cockpit, with negotiation at the core and a seamless, integrated enterprise experience.

What success looks like
First 30 days

• Full audit of codebase and infrastructure, with a clear risk map and action plan
• Knowledge transfer completed with the external team
• Monitoring, error tracking, and release processes stabilized

Days 30–90

• Measurable improvements in performance and reliability
• Clear architectural direction documented
• First key roadmap features shipped end-to-end

After 3–6 months

• Strong delivery cadence, fewer incidents, faster iteration
  Hiring and onboarding plan defined and first hire(s) made if needed

Current tech stack

• Frontend: Nuxt 3, Vue, Vuetify
• Backend: Nuxt 3 (Nitro)
• Database: PostgreSQL (Supabase)
• Hosting: Vercel

The stack can evolve as we scale — with a strong preference for pragmatic decisions that protect delivery speed .

What we are looking for
Must-haves

• Strong full-stack background with true ownership of production systems
• Solid experience with Vue and (Nuxt is a big plus)
• Strong PostgreSQL fundamentals (Supabase experience is a plus)
• Experience building and operating a demanding B2B SaaS product
• High bar for reliability, performance, clean architecture, and security
• Comfortable working autonomously and making tradeoffs

Nice-to-haves

• Previous experience leading or mentoring engineers (formally or informally)
• Built workflow-heavy or real-time systems
• Integration mindset (ERP, SAP-like systems, SSO, audit trails, exports)
  Interest in AI-enabled product features and automation

Work setup

We are looking for someone based in Paris or willing to work mostly in person .

Remote days are flexible, but we strongly believe that early-stage momentum is built through close, live collaboration , mainly from our offices at Station F and Châtelet.

Hiring process

• Intro call (30 min)

Technical deep dive with the current freelance tech lead

Practical case (time-boxed) + architecture discussion

• Team meeting and informal lunch

---