4 ms·
CTO is a strategic position. It sounds like what you're doing is engineering management + strategy + product development, which is a recipe for burnout and fail
by yc-kraln 8y ago
CTO is a strategic position. It sounds like what you're doing is engineering management + strategy + product development, which is a recipe for burnout and failure. Identify which one of those things you prefer to do, and clarify your responsibilities within that role. Are you more strategic? CTO. Are you more people manager? VP Engineering. Are you more individual contributor? Senior Architect or similar, non-people-responsibility tech role.
If you go the people management route, expect to be constantly supporting others and developing them--contexts will always be changing.
- YuriNiyazov 8y agoWith a team of 4 the CTO and the VPE roles are usually handled by one person.
- fictorial 8y agoPerhaps we just need more people to which I can delegate work. I love designing big architectures and also mentoring junior developers. But then also doing a lot of the work or jumping between 5 projects to bail a junior out is spreading me thin. So, we'll see. We ARE hiring more people so maybe I just need to be patient. Our founders do all the client management, we have a product manager who deals with the WHAT, and I deal with the HOW, with 4 developers under me hopefully as means to implementation.
- YuriNiyazov 8y agoNo you don’t need more people. It doesn’t sound like there’s too much work to do, it sounds like you haven’t developed as a manager.
- fictorial 8y agoClearly! That’s why I am looking for help in any form in order to improve.