Engineering While the CTO Role Is Empty: How DACH Scale-Ups Are Staying on Roadmap

The three to six months between "we need a CTO" and "we have one onboarded" is the most technically expensive period a scale-up can go through. Most companies find out the hard way. Across Berlin's tech scene in Q1 and Q2 2026, a specific hiring pattern has become visible: companies with 50 to 150 employees, real revenue, and active engineering teams posting for a CTPO or CTO while simultaneously shipping product, preparing a funding round, or scaling into new markets. These are not early-stage