Chief Technology Officer

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) - Skatteguiden

Payne Talent are recruiting on behalf of our client Skatteguiden.

Tech-first. Ego-free. User-obsessed. We’re Skatteguiden – the independent advisor for 1 million Danes (and counting), starting with tax and now taking on the broader world of personal finance.

We’re not tied to strategic partners, investor KPIs or slow-moving hierarchies. We're profitable, well-funded, and accountable only to our users. That gives us a rare superpower: clarity.

We’re a tech company at heart. That means tight teams, direct execution, and continuous delivery. We build fast, break well, and learn obsessively. We ship meaningful products, not fluff – and we win together.

If you’re a Tech Leader who wants to do high-leverage work with purpose, this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

About this Opportunity

As Skatteguiden's CTO, you will lead the company’s technology strategy and execution, balancing long-term scalability with short-term delivery.

You will provide strategic vision, architectural direction, and hands-on leadership to a growing engineering team, driving innovation and operational excellence.

Your focus will be on building a scalable, secure, and resilient platform, embedding core development principles, and fostering a high-performing engineering culture.

You will play a central role in evolving our platform architecture, ensuring robust security and compliance, and preparing the organisation for its next phase of growth.

As a key member of the management team, you will empower engineers, support expansion into new verticals, and help shape the company’s long-term technical direction.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the company’s technology strategy, ensuring alignment with business vision and supporting both long-term scalability and short-term delivery
• Drive architectural direction and evolve the platform to support current and future demands, ensuring security, scalability, and efficiency
• Build, mentor, and inspire high-performing, cross-functional engineering teams, fostering autonomy, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning
• Own IT security, GDPR compliance, and environment separation, embedding robust security practices and readiness for standards like SOC 2
• Collaborate closely with management, Product, and Data to align technology initiatives with business objectives and support insight-driven decisions
• Maintain hands-on involvement in coding and troubleshooting, setting up the right team structure for scale, and quickly resolving technical issues
• Promote a positive, solution-oriented mindset, encouraging innovation, continuous improvement, and hypothesis-driven experimentation
• Implement and optimise automated infrastructure and user journey processes, enhancing operational efficiency and platform maturity
• Balance strategic vision with practical execution, making informed decisions, avoiding technical shortcuts, and adapting quickly to changing priorities
• Be available to respond to critical issues outside of standard hours, ensuring system reliability, uptime, and a resilient technical setup

Your Experience

• Proven experience leading and scaling engineering teams from early-stage to growth (ideally in SaaS or product-led companies), including scaling from around 10 to 30+ engineers
• Strong strategic mindset with the ability to balance long-term scalability and short-term delivery, and embed core development principles
• Hands-on technical expertise, comfortable diving into code and setting up scalable, modular architectures
• Demonstrated success in building secure, automated infrastructure, improving IT security (including GDPR compliance and environment separation), and readiness for standards like SOC 2
• Experience fostering a positive, high-performing team culture that encourages autonomy, ownership, and knowledge sharing
• Ability to communicate effectively with engineers and management, and collaborate with Product, Data, and other teams
• Track record of making informed decisions quickly, balancing delivery speed with architectural discipline, and adapting to fast-paced environments
• Previous roles such as Head of Tech, Director of Tech, or similar leadership positions in dynamic, growth-focused companies (preferably from fintech, SaaS, or tech startups)
• Willingness to be available beyond standard hours when critical issues arise, ensuring reliability and uptime
• Strong interpersonal skills with a likeable, energetic personality that fits well within a mixed senior and junior team, and proven ability to attract, hire, and mentor senior engineers
• Passion for continuous learning, improvement, and experimentation, unafraid to take calculated risks and learn from mistakes

What's in it for you

• Opportunity to shape the technology vision and strategy of a fast-growing company entering new verticals
• Direct influence on platform architecture, engineering culture, and organisational structure
• Work closely with a talented, collaborative team of senior and junior engineers
• High degree of autonomy and ownership, with the ability to implement your ideas and drive real impact
• Be a key member of the management team, helping to set the direction for the next phase of growth
• Exposure to modern technologies, scalable infrastructure, and best practices in security and compliance
• A dynamic, learning-focused environment where experimentation and innovation are encouraged
• Competitive compensation and the chance to grow with the company as it scales internationally
• You will be a part of the board meetings (5 across the year)

Our Lean Recruitment Process

1. 30-minute screening call with our recruiter, Christian Payne
2. 1 hour Online meeting with Martin (CPO) and Nikolai (CEO)
3. 1-hour Onsite meeting with your future developer team, and Nikolai (CEO)

If you are ready to lead Skatteguiden’s technology vision and drive innovation in a dynamic environment, we want to hear from you. Please apply, and you will hear from Christian Payne (from Payne Talent) within a week.

Take the next step in your career and join us as our new CTO.