Associate to the CTO

About Bending Spoons

At Bending Spoons, we’re striving to build one of the all-time great companies. A company that serves a huge number of customers. A company where team members grow to their full potential. A company that functions at unparalleled levels of effectiveness and efficiency. A company that creates value for shareowners at an extraordinary rate. And a company that does so while adhering to high ethical standards.

To achieve this objective, we execute the following strategy: We acquire a digital business with untapped potential and make it as successful as we can by leveraging our platform—which comprises our expertise, technologies, data, brand, talents, and company culture. Then, we invest the proceeds into making our platform more powerful, and into acquiring new businesses. Thus, our strategy sees us combine an investor’s attention to capital allocation with the hands-on approach of an operator.

For a talented, driven, and collaborative individual, working at Bending Spoons is an opportunity to learn, make an impact, and progress their career at an exceptionally high rate. That’s our promise to such a candidate.

The Role: Associate to the CTO

Our Technology team is central to our mission—building the systems, products, and infrastructure that power dozens of digital businesses serving millions of users worldwide. As part of our fast-track program for future engineering leads, you’ll join a world-class group of problem-solvers working to create technology of extraordinary quality and scale.

This position is open to individuals with an outstanding track record of excellence and growth—whether or not they’ve previously held an engineering-lead role. After an intensive training period of six to twelve months, if your performance warrants it, you’ll take on a technical leadership role—either as the sole leader or co-leader—of a business unit generating revenue in the tens of millions of dollars at a minimum, with the potential to increase your level of responsibility to the hundreds of millions over time. You’ll report directly to our CTO.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive strategy: Develop and execute bold, data-informed strategies that are laser-focused on unlocking new levels of value for the company.
• Lead an outstanding team: Lead a high-performing team composed of some of the most talented professionals you’ll ever encounter. Where necessary, make tough decisions to uphold excellence.
• Operate at the sharp end of the industry: We’re one of the highest-rated employers in tech and finance, and our products have hundreds of millions of users. Our sights are set on greatness, and yours (and your team’s) must be, too.
• Master your toolkit: By working across diverse tech stacks in a full-stack, end-to-end scope, you’ll refine your ability to choose the right tools for every challenge. From monolithic to microservices architectures, gRPC to REST APIs, Kubernetes to Docker, Python to Rust—you’ll show that true expertise isn’t about using the trendiest technologies, but about understanding their purpose to unleash their full potential.
• Simplify relentlessly: Is every component essential? Do we need this process? As a Bending Spoons engineer, your mission is to turn complexity into simplicity. Whether optimizing CI/CD pipelines, writing maintainable code, or crafting minimalist architectures, your drive to simplify will power scalable, future-proof solutions.

What We Look For

• Leadership: You have some years of outstanding work experience in highly challenging roles and environments, and have demonstrated exceptional performance and outlier growth in your role.
• Drive: You’re extremely ambitious in everything you do—and your initiative, effort, and tenacity match the intensity of your ambition. You feel deeply responsible for your work. You hold yourself to a high—and rising—bar.
• Reasoning ability: Given the necessary knowledge, you can solve complex problems. You think from first principles, and structure your ideas sharply. You resist the influence of biases. You identify and take care of the details that matter.
• Team spirit: You give generously and without the expectation of receiving in return. You support the best idea, not your idea. You're always happy to get your hands dirty to help your team. You’re reliable, honest, and transparent.
• Proficiency in English: You read, write, and speak proficiently in English.

What We Offer

• An exceptional opportunity for growth: We go to great lengths to hire individuals of outstanding potential—then, our priority is to put them in the ideal position to thrive. Spooners in their 20s lead products worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And if you’ve got what it takes, you’ll soon be playing an essential role in major projects, too.
• Incredibly talented, entrepreneurial teams: You’ll work in small, result-oriented, autonomous teams alongside some of the brightest people in your field.
• All. These. Benefits: Flexible hours, remote working, 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 help each Spooner set up the conditions to do their best work.
• Competitive pay and access to equity in the company: For a candidate that we assess as possessing considerable relevant experience, the annual salary on offer tends to be between £151,436 and £250,512 in London, and €145,430 and €240,330 elsewhere in Europe. Compensation varies by location and expected impact, and grows rapidly as you gain experience and translate it into greater contributions. For individuals who demonstrate exceptional capability, we may offer compensation that extends beyond the usual ranges to reflect their higher expected impact. If you're offered a permanent contract, you'll also be able receive some of your pay in company equity at a discounted price, thus participating in the value creation we achieve together. If relocating to Italy, you may enjoy 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. To help you ramp up quickly and set yourself up for success, we recommend spending your first few months working from our Milan office, regardless of your long-term work location. We’ll support you with generous travel and accommodation assistance.

The Selection Process

In our screening process, we prioritize verifiable signals of excellence, regardless of seniority. If you pass our screening, you’ll be asked to complete one or more challenging tests. We set the bar high and won’t extend an offer until we’re confident we’ve found the right candidate.

Before You Apply

Bending Spoons is a demanding environment. It requires significant commitment but offers extraordinary learning and career growth. If the role speaks to you and you’re excited to give your best, we’d love to hear from you.

Key skills/competency

• Strategic Planning
• Team Leadership
• Technical Architecture
• Problem Solving
• Data-informed Decision Making
• Software Engineering
• Full-Stack Development
• System Design
• Performance Optimization
• Agile Methodologies