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"Saying that you have to code to be a CTO is like saying that, in order to design a skyscraper, you have start as a cement mixer, then work your way up to girde
by ALittleLight 5y ago
"Saying that you have to code to be a CTO is like saying that, in order to design a skyscraper, you have start as a cement mixer, then work your way up to girder riveting before finally hanging drywall and installing windows before they let you design the building."
This type of argument from analogy isn't very persuasive to me. Software developers aren't really like cement mixers and CTO's aren't really like architects. They are different jobs. Thus, while, "You don't do X in Y" may be true, it's not necessarily relevant to the discussion. And, it would probably help if the person leading a team of cement mixers was himself an expert cement mixer.
- darkerside 5y agoSlightly closer to compare the ops and infrastructure folks to the cement mixers (still a terrible analogy). Your devs are already designing software. Code is a blueprint. So yeah, if you want to design a skyscraper, you should understand building design.
- osigurdson 5y agoAgree. Analogies of this sort are rarely helpful. I've never understood the motivation to draw analogies to problem domains we have little knowledge of to explain our own domain to each other.