Engineering Leadership: A Hiring Blueprint for $50M ARR to IPO
An analysis of the backgrounds of Engineering executives at SaaS companies from $50M ARR to IPO
We believe executive hiring is the final frontier within the modern organization that has yet to benefit from the proliferation of data. Despite having data to guide nearly every other business decision – and despite the criticality of executive hiring decisions – CEOs and Founders have heretofore largely relied on anecdotal guidance.
We hope this analysis, which examines the backgrounds of Engineering executives at SaaS companies from $50M ARR to IPO, serves as a north star as you build and scale your engineering organization.
Hiring Overview
- As a company scales past $50M ARR, CEOs often seek to hire a Head of Engineering from outside the organization.
- However, it also becomes 2.5x more common to promote someone internally relative to <$50M ARR companies.
- This may be attributed to companies having had sufficient time to develop internal talent and assess whether an individual has the technical and leadership skills necessary to lead the engineering organization through its growth.
.png)
One of the key operational traits we evaluated is the prevalence of leaders with prior experience in leading entire engineering organizations. Interestingly, only approximately half of the externally hired leaders have prior Head of Engineering experience. Among those with such experience, most have led engineering organizations at companies of similar size or larger.
.png)
In addition to prior leadership experience, we evaluated engineering leaders’ sector backgrounds. At the $50M+ ARR stage, Application companies are more willing to hire leaders from outside their sector, while Infrastructure companies generally skew towards leaders with an infrastructure-oriented background. This preference among Infrastructure companies is likely due to the higher technical complexity of infrastructure products.
.png)
Stay Informed, Stay Ahead
Subscribe for exclusive access to ICONIQ Growth's insights, analytics research, and market trends
-transformed-transformed.png){kind=spacer}
.jpg)
.png)
Other Reports
Disclaimer
Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this presentation are those of ICONIQ Growth (“ICONIQ" or the “Firm"), are the result of proprietary research, may be subjective, and may not be relied upon in making an investment decision. Information used in this presentation was obtained from numerous sources. Certain of these companies are portfolio companies of ICONIQ Growth. ICONIQ Growth does not make any representations or warranties as to the accuracy of the information obtained from these sources.
This presentation is for general information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. This presentation must not be relied upon in connection with any investment decision. The information in this presentation is not intended to and does not constitute financial, accounting, tax, legal, investment, consulting or other professional advice or services. Nothing in this presentation is or should be construed as an offer, invitation or solicitation to engage in any investment activity or transaction, including an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities which should only be made pursuant to definitive offering documents and subscription agreements, including without limitation, any investment fund or investment product referenced herein.
Any reproduction or distribution of this presentation in whole or in part, or the disclosure of any of its contents, without the prior consent of ICONIQ, is strictly unauthorized.
This presentation may contain forward-looking statements based on current plans, estimates and projections. The recipient of this presentation ("you") are cautioned that a number of important factors could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the forward-looking statements. The numbers, figures and case studies included in this presentation have been included for purposes of illustration only, and no assurance can be given that the actual results of ICONIQ or any of its partners and affiliates will correspond with the results contemplated in the presentation. No information is contained herein with respect to conflicts of interest, which may be significant. The portfolio companies and other parties mentioned herein may reflect a selective list of the prior investments made by ICONIQ.
Certain of the economic and market information contained herein may have been obtained from published sources and/or prepared by other parties. While such sources are believed to be reliable, none of ICONIQ or any of its affiliates and partners, employees and representatives assume any responsibility for the accuracy of such information.
All of the information in the presentation is presented as of the date made available to you (except as otherwise specified), and is subject to change without notice, and may not be current or may have changed (possibly materially) between the date made available to you and the date actually received or reviewed by you. ICONIQ assumes no obligation to update or otherwise revise any information, projections, forecasts or estimates contained in the presentation, including any revisions to reflect changes in economic or market conditions or other circumstances arising after the date the items were made available to you or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Numbers or amounts herein may increase or decrease as a result of currency fluctuations.