Associate to the CTO

About Bending Spoons

At Bending Spoons, we’re striving to build one of the all-time great companies. Our objective is to serve a huge number of customers, foster team members' full potential, operate with unparalleled effectiveness and efficiency, create extraordinary value for shareowners, and adhere to high ethical standards. We achieve this by acquiring digital businesses with untapped potential, leveraging our platform—comprising expertise, technologies, data, brand, talents, and company culture—to maximize their success. We then reinvest in our platform and acquire new businesses, combining an investor’s attention to capital allocation with an operator's hands-on approach.

For talented, driven, and collaborative individuals, Bending Spoons offers an exceptional opportunity to learn, make a significant impact, and accelerate career progression.

The Technology Team and Your Role as Associate to the CTO

Our Technology team is central to Bending Spoons' mission, building the systems, products, and infrastructure that power dozens of digital businesses serving millions globally. As an Associate to the CTO, you will join a world-class group of problem-solvers within our fast-track program for future engineering leads, focusing on creating technology of extraordinary quality and scale.

This position is open to individuals with an outstanding track record of excellence and growth, regardless of prior engineering-lead experience. Following an intensive six to twelve-month training period, high-performing individuals will transition into a technical leadership role—either as the sole leader or co-leader—of a business unit generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue, with potential to scale to hundreds of millions. You will report directly to our CTO.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive Strategy: Develop and execute bold, data-informed strategies specifically aimed at unlocking new levels of value for the company.
• Lead an Outstanding Team: Guide a high-performing team of exceptionally talented professionals. Make tough decisions when necessary to uphold standards of excellence.
• Operate at the Sharp End of the Industry: Contribute to one of the highest-rated employers in tech and finance, working on products with hundreds of millions of users, with a relentless focus on achieving greatness.
• Master Your Toolkit: Work across diverse tech stacks in a full-stack, end-to-end scope, refining your ability to select the optimal tools for any challenge. From monolithic to microservices architectures, gRPC to REST APIs, Kubernetes to Docker, and Python to Rust, you will demonstrate true expertise in understanding technology's purpose to unlock its full potential.
• Simplify Relentlessly: Transform complexity into simplicity. Your mission is to question every component and process, optimize CI/CD pipelines, write maintainable code, and craft minimalist architectures to power scalable, future-proof solutions.

What We Look For

• Leadership: Possess several years of outstanding work experience in highly challenging roles and environments, demonstrating exceptional performance and outlier growth.
• Drive: Exhibit extreme ambition, matched by initiative, effort, and tenacity. Feel deeply responsible for your work and consistently set a high, rising bar for yourself.
• Reasoning Ability: Capable of solving complex problems from first principles, structuring ideas sharply, resisting biases, and identifying crucial details.
• Team Spirit: Give generously without expectation of return, support the best ideas, and are always willing to assist your team. Be reliable, honest, and transparent.
• Proficiency in English: Read, write, and speak English proficiently.

What We Offer

• Exceptional Growth Opportunity: We hire individuals of outstanding potential and place them in ideal positions to thrive. Spooners in their 20s lead products worth hundreds of millions; you could soon play an essential role in major projects.
• Incredibly Talented, Entrepreneurial Teams: Work in small, result-oriented, autonomous teams alongside some of the brightest people in your field.
• Comprehensive Benefits: Enjoy flexible hours, remote working options, unlimited backing for learning and training, top-of-the-market health insurance, a rich relocation package, generous parental support, and a yearly retreat to a stunning location. We ensure every Spooner has the conditions to do their best work.
• Competitive Pay and Equity Access: Annual salaries range from £151,436 to £250,512 in London, and €145,430 to €240,330 elsewhere in Europe, varying by location and expected impact, with rapid growth potential. Exceptional candidates may receive compensation beyond usual ranges. Permanent contract holders can receive company equity at a discounted price, participating in value creation. Relocating to Italy may offer a 50% tax cut.

Commitment & Contract

Permanent or fixed-term. Full-time.

Location

Milan (Italy), London (UK), Madrid (Spain), Warsaw (Poland) or remote in selected countries.

The Selection Process

Our screening prioritizes verifiable signals of excellence regardless of seniority. If you are interested and believe you can excel, we encourage you to apply even if you lack specific experience or feel your CV is 'imperfect'.

Successful applicants will complete one or more challenging tests, which may involve unfamiliar problems and take several hours. We maintain a high bar and will only extend an offer when confident in finding the right candidate, which may result in roles remaining open for extended periods.

We provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities; please inform us through the provided form.

Before You Apply

If you've applied previously without an offer, we recommend waiting at least one year before reapplying. Bending Spoons is a demanding, ambitious environment with high standards, fostering extraordinary learning and career growth, but requiring significant commitment.

To facilitate rapid onboarding and success, we recommend spending your first few months working from our Milan office, regardless of your long-term work location. We offer generous travel and accommodation assistance. Afterward, you may work from our Milan or London offices, or remotely from approved countries, as agreed at the offer stage.

If this role excites you and you're ready to give your best, we'd love to hear from you. Apply now!

Key skills/competency

• Technology Strategy
• Leadership Development
• Team Management
• Complex Problem Solving
• Data-Informed Decision Making
• Full-Stack Development
• System Architecture
• Scalability
• Process Optimization
• Technical Simplification