Trace claims into actual ownership
Explore what the candidate personally owned, why decisions were made, which alternatives were rejected, what failed, and where their responsibility ended.
CTO-LED TECHNICAL INTERVIEWS
See how senior candidates think beyond the prepared answer.
Your candidates. A CTO-level interviewer. A decision you can defend.
Tech Talent Screen conducts role-specific, adaptive technical interviews for senior and high-impact technical roles.
One named veteran engineering leader learns your hiring bar and follows each candidate’s evidence into decisions, tradeoffs, debugging, failures, and actual ownership. You receive an evidence-backed advance or do-not-advance recommendation, material risks, and focused questions for the internal interview loop.
For candidates already in your funnel. No sourcing or placement.
Discuss a Live Role
Bring a live role. We will talk through what success looks like, which signals matter, and how the interviewer would evaluate candidates already in your pipeline. If it’s a fit, we calibrate the role and begin evaluating your candidates. We’ll discuss scope, timing, and pricing on the call.
- Named 30+ year technical leader
- Same interviewer for every candidate
- 150+ senior technical evaluations
- Direct access throughout the search
The signal problem
Polished answers are not the same as demonstrated technical judgment.
Take-home projects, coding assessments, and familiar system-design prompts can show whether a candidate can produce an answer. Senior hiring decisions require evidence of how the candidate reasons when the prepared path ends, assumptions change, and tradeoffs become real.
Change constraints and follow the reasoning
Observe how the candidate adapts when requirements change, complications appear, and the initial solution or theory no longer works.
Distinguish AI leverage from AI dependency
Evaluate whether the candidate can use AI responsibly while still understanding, critiquing, debugging, and defending the resulting work.
Signal through calibration
The same interviewer learns what strong looks like for your team.
Large interviewer networks provide access to a pool. Tech Talent Screen gives your team a working relationship with one named technical leader.
Before the first candidate evaluation, your team calibrates the role, hiring bar, must-have evidence, and material risks directly with that interviewer.
Calibrate before the first evaluation
Define the role, real work, seniority expectations, and evidence required for a candidate to advance.
Apply one consistent hiring bar
The same interviewer evaluates every candidate for the role, creating a more meaningful comparison across the candidate pool.
Discuss the evidence directly
Review recommendations, risks, and uncertain areas with the person who conducted the interview.
Improve comparison across candidates
The interviewer develops a more precise understanding of your standards and a stronger comparative view as the search progresses.
As the search progresses, the interviewer develops a clearer comparative view across candidates and applies your hiring bar with increasing precision.
How it works
From role calibration to a clear recommendation
The engagement follows a focused process built around the role your team is hiring for.
- 1
Calibrate the role
Your team shares the position, the work, the hiring bar, and the nuances that should shape a role-specific interview.
- 2
Conduct an adaptive interview
The interviewer explores past technical decisions and actual ownership, then observes the candidate working through a live problem with follow-up questions, complications, and changing constraints.
- 3
Receive decision-ready evidence
Your team receives a clear advance or do-not-advance recommendation, the evidence behind it, material risks, and focused questions for the internal interview loop.
What is evaluated
Evidence that matters for a senior hire
Prior decisions and ownership
What the candidate personally owned, decided, changed, and remained accountable for.
Depth of knowledge
How far the candidate can explain, defend, critique, and extend the work they describe.
Architecture and tradeoffs
How the candidate reasons about constraints, failure modes, alternatives, and system consequences.
Debugging under ambiguity
How the candidate investigates unfamiliar behavior and adjusts when the initial theory is wrong.
Live coding judgment
How the candidate works through an evolving problem rather than a static, rehearsed exercise.
Communication and AI use
How clearly the candidate collaborates, explains uncertainty, and uses AI without surrendering technical understanding.
The deliverable
A recommendation your team can act on
The report helps recruiting and engineering decide whether the candidate has demonstrated enough technical depth, judgment, and ownership to advance—and identifies what the next interview should investigate.
Recommendation
Advance or Do Not Advance
- 01Evidence supporting the recommendation
- 02Material strengths
- 03Material risks
- 04What was not observed
- 05Focused questions for the internal loop
Experience and proof
Senior judgment behind every evaluation
Every current Tech Talent Screen evaluation is conducted by Bryan Hall, bringing more than 30 years of technical leadership and hiring experience.
Bryan led Data & AI at Seismic during its growth from approximately $100 million to $3 billion in valuation.
The evaluation method has been refined through 150+ senior technical evaluations across multiple roles and continues to improve through ongoing client engagements.
HOW TO START
Start with a live role.
Bring a Senior, Staff, Lead, or Principal requisition and the candidates already in the funnel. On a 30-minute working session we map the hiring bar, which signals actually matter, and whether a CTO-level evaluation is the right next step.
If it’s a fit, we calibrate the role and begin evaluating your candidates. We’ll discuss scope, timing, and pricing on the call.
Discuss a Live Role
You’ll speak directly with the person who conducts the interviews.