Why misaligned hiring criteria are excluding exceptional technology leaders—and what to do about it
After years of building and scaling high-performing teams in tech—and learning from some of the best leaders along the way—I’ve seen a troubling pattern: companies routinely struggle to hire the right leaders, while exceptional talent is overlooked and left on the sidelines. While some organizations have mastered the art of identifying and attracting great technology leaders, far too many are trapped in screening practices that work against their own success—and I believe we can do better.
The contradiction is everywhere: Job posting A demands “15-20 years of hands-on technical experience with specific programming languages.” Job posting B explicitly wants “a people-first leader, not someone who gets lost in technical details.” Both claim they need “technology leaders.”
This isn’t just inconsistency—it’s a systemic failure that’s excluding extraordinary candidates and perpetuating the very talent shortage we claim to want to solve.
The False Choice That’s Breaking Tech Hiring
The technology industry has trapped itself in a false dichotomy: technical expertise OR leadership capability. Never both. This binary thinking creates predictable hiring disasters:
The Architect Who Can’t Lead: Promote the most technically skilled IC into leadership. When they struggle with team dynamics and strategic planning, overcorrect by seeking “pure managers.”
The Manager Who Can’t Understand: Hire impressive management credentials with limited technical depth. Watch them struggle to earn credibility with technical teams and make informed architectural decisions.
The Experience Bias: Dismiss a candidate with 25 years as “too technical” while rejecting someone with 5-10 years as “too junior.” Miss the actual leadership capabilities entirely.
The Insecurity Filter: Perhaps most damaging of all, some hiring managers unconsciously eliminate candidates who might outshine them or challenge their authority. A truly exceptional candidate gets labeled as “overqualified” or “not a culture fit” or “polished traditionalist” when the real issue is a leader’s fear of being upstaged or having their decisions questioned by someone with deeper expertise or stronger influencer capability.
The ATS Problem Making Things Worse
Here’s the cruel irony: Technology companies are using crude automation to screen for leaders who will implement sophisticated technology solutions.
Your ATS filters for “Java, AWS, Docker” keywords. The exceptional candidate who led successful transformations using Python, Azure, and containerization gets auto-rejected before human eyes see their application.
AI screening tools trained on historical data perpetuate narrow definitions of success. If you’ve only hired CTOs from large tech companies, the AI systematically eliminates equally qualified candidates from consulting, finance, or healthcare—exactly the diverse perspectives that drive innovation.
What Exceptional Technology Leadership Actually Looks Like
Research reveals that effective technology leaders share characteristics that transcend the technical-versus-managerial divide:
🔹 Adaptive Technical Fluency: Sufficient depth to understand challenges while continuously learning. They don’t need to be the strongest coder, but must be technically credible.
🔹 Strategic Business Acumen: Understand how technology serves business objectives. Translate technical concepts for stakeholders and make technology decisions that advance organizational goals.
🔹 Scaling Mindset: Think systematically about processes, culture, and organizational design. Their role is multiplying team effectiveness, not being the smartest person in the room.
🔹 Communication Across Contexts: Excel from detailed technical discussions with engineers to strategic conversations with board members.
Stop Doing This (Poor Examples)
❌ The Checkbox Approach: “Must have 15+ years in Java, AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, React, Node.js, and managed 50+ engineers.” Why it fails: Prioritizes specific technical knowledge over leadership capabilities and problem-solving skills.
❌ The Generic Manager: “MBA and 10+ years management experience. Technical background preferred but not required.” Why it fails: Technology requires leaders who understand unique challenges of technical teams and complex systems.
❌ The Impossible Unicorn: “Expert-level in ML, cloud architecture, and cybersecurity. Shipped consumer products at scale. Experience in enterprise and startup environments.” Why it fails: Seeks mastery of multiple specialized domains—unrealistic and unnecessary.
Start Doing This (Better Approaches)
✅ Role-Specific Competencies: “Scale our 30-person engineering team to 100+ while maintaining technical excellence. Experience with team scaling, process improvement, and technical strategy. Specific technology experience less important than ability to learn and adapt.”
✅ Scenario-Based Evaluation: “Our team struggles with technical debt and monthly deployment cycles. How would you approach this challenge?”
✅ Values and Vision Alignment: “Drive transition to cloud-native architecture while building continuous learning culture. Tell us about a technical transformation you led.”

The One Question That Changes Everything
To hiring managers, HR professionals, and staffing agencies: What is it that you’re really looking for?
Before your next hire, answer:
- What specific challenges will this leader solve?
- What outcomes do we need in 90 days? First year?
- What leadership style fits our culture and current needs?
- Are we maintaining status quo or driving transformation?
- What are true must-haves versus nice-to-haves?
The Path Forward
The exceptional technology leaders your organization needs are within your walls, and “out there”. They may be:
- The architect who developed exceptional communication skills
- The product manager who learned to code
- The consultant who specialized in digital transformation
- The startup founder who built and scaled technical teams
- The cloud leader who turned platform stability into a product mindset → A former infrastructure gatekeeper who now drives developer enablement, self-service architectures, and cross-functional velocity.
- The data scientist who evolved into a systems thinker → Once buried in models, now shaping platform-wide strategies that connect insights to impact, with empathy for both business and engineering teams.
Current screening practices systematically exclude these candidates in favor of checkbox matches. This isn’t just ineffective—it’s actively harmful to organizational success.
Action Steps
For Organizations: → Define clear role expectations before searching → Audit ATS/AI tools for superficial keyword filtering → Focus on demonstrated results over technical credentials → Implement human review for auto-filtered candidates
For Candidates: → Articulate your leadership philosophy clearly → Prepare specific examples of technical and organizational outcomes → Demonstrate business acumen alongside technical knowledge → Highlight your unique value proposition
For Recruiters: → Understand actual role requirements beyond job descriptions → Educate clients about diverse technology leadership profiles → Develop evaluation frameworks assessing leadership potential → Build relationships with non-traditional but exceptional candidates
The Bottom Line
The question isn’t whether candidates have the “right” technical background or management experience—it’s whether they can solve your specific area challenges while building and inspiring the people around them.
True technology leadership happens at every level of an organization, from team leads mentoring junior engineers and developers to CTOs presenting to boards. The best technology leaders share something that no resume can fully capture: the ability to engage authentically with cross-functional peers, develop talent within their teams, and create environments where both technology and people thrive. These human qualities—emotional intelligence, genuine care for others’ growth and development, and the personality to build bridges across departments—are often the differentiators between good technical managers and transformational technology leaders.
Organizations that evolve beyond arbitrary credentials to focus on demonstrated leadership capability and human connection will gain significant competitive advantages. Those that don’t will continue perpetuating the talent shortage they claim to want to solve.
You may already have some exceptional technology leaders — but the ones who will shape what’s next might still be out there. Are you creating space for them, or letting cemented practices and selective bias quietly screen them out?
What’s your experience with technology leadership hiring? Have you seen exceptional candidates filtered out by misaligned screening criteria? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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