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Being a CTO doesn’t mean you are the craziest hacker on the team. In actuality, writing code is probably the last thing you will be doing. Not entirely tru
by devy 10y ago
Being a CTO doesn’t mean you are the craziest hacker on the team.
In actuality, writing code is probably the last thing you will be doing.
Not entirely true. This is a typical "You Mileage May Vary" scenario, in actuality. From all the small startup teams (headcount less than 15) that I've worked at in the past decade, CTO must be the role who leads in coding - in almost all the cases the first version of the software product was 100% done by CTOs because small agile teams don't have the luxury to be managing instead of doing and EVERYONE (even CEOs) wears a lot of hats.
After bootstrap and rounds of fundings, things will change for sure. But CTOs at very early startups are definitely more about doing less about managing IMMO.
- 67726e 10y agoI don't think this is a YMMV, but rather we're all lacking a proper, consistent definition of what a CTO is and does. Many in the the comments are coming from the idea of a C-suite officer of a large company, which I think is proper. I think a lot of the use of CTO / VP of Engineering / Director at a lot of startups is just some ego-stroking type behavior. Your claim of being a CTO at a 10 person startup is not likely to be getting you a job as a CTO of a mid-market firm because you're not really a CTO, you're some kind of architect at best.
- devy 10y agoThe definition of CTO is evolving as the company evolves. The same company at different stages requires its CTO to be in different role, as you mentioned CTO in a 10-person startup is a different role than a CTO in Fortune 500 company.
- 67726e 10y agoFor the purposes of discussion, we will not get anywhere fruitful if we say "Oh, it can be anything you want it to" - again, I contend that a CTO at a 10-person startup is not an actual CTO but some kind of team lead / architect. It's a pointless name as it does not convey what it typically does and serves only to act as some status signal. Instead of saying "The definition of CTO is evolving" which is rather contradictory, a definition to make something distinct and clear, it would be better to frame it as that person's role is evolving, and that their title of CTO is not indicative of their actual role.
- paulcole 10y agoI think he addresses this in the very next paragraph: >It’s easy to accidentally become a CTO by getting hired by a small company with no other developers, like you would see in most startups. But while the title might say “Chief Technology Officer,” it is probably just a fancy acronym for an “overworked developer.”