That's an interesting point. I think the fact that an eCommerce retailer is working on technical problems that may take 1-2 years to solve would surprise a lot

That's an interesting point. I think the fact that an eCommerce retailer is working on technical problems that may take 1-2 years to solve would surprise a lot of people. In eCommerce you're going to be fighting against the preconception that all a CTO would be doing is trying to up-the-conversion-rate and adding new products to the lineup (snooze-fest). The fact you're tackling academically rigorous problems is an asset, so anything you can share about it will help you recruit. A lot of people have hot-buttons for the topics that interest them, so pushing them, even in a general way could catalyze interest. If, for example, you were working on a speed/latency/performance problem that might attract a certain kind of person, whereas a big-data or analytics problem might attract someone else.