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

1. Intro call (30 min)
2. Technical deep dive with the current freelance tech lead
3. Practical case (time-boxed) + architecture discussion
4. Team meeting and informal lunch

 

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