11 ms·

I just became a CTO. So, let me bear my thoughts. Since July of this year I've been CTO for a small games company, I've worked in this industry before in a mor

by dijit 4y ago

I just became a CTO. So, let me bear my thoughts. Since July of this year I've been CTO for a small games company, I've worked in this industry before in a more specialised role but this is much broader scope. I've gone from being responsible for 1 person to 10 which will likely become 50 by the end of next year. I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I feel like I will let my reports down. I'm terrified because a lot of the work I'm doing lacks transparency, how do I tell my compatriots about things that may not come to pass, especially deep political things -- and the amount of work necessary to onboard/offboard people, about "strategic partnerships" and why they're taken, or not taken or any of the hundreds of other things which are changing direction 3 times a day each. I am technical, deeply, passionately technical. I will not do service to people by being technical, my days are too fragmented, my worries too broad, it's impossible to dig into a small focused problem and give it the treatment it deserves - and even if I could then I'd be dooming one of my colleagues to maintain it forever because I couldn't possibly.. My being technical is good because I know the problems and I know what can make people feel valued; I can give people autonomy and direction and I can understand when help is needed and how to give it. However, almost nothing in my work is technical, it's all presentations, discussions, breakdowns, timelines, contracts and negotiation. The most code I write now is to do cost reporting. My most frequently accessed cloud console pages are the billing sections. This is not fun at all (and frankly, I didn't think it would be); but I fear what will replace me if I leave.

brightball 4y ago
If you have that much chaos that you’re insulating your team from, it sounds like you need to try to set some barriers. I’m not sure how anyone could be expected to function in the environment you’re describing. *I have never worked in games.
vasco 4y ago
> but I fear what will replace me if I leave So you'll never retire or die?
- dijit 4y ago
  I’m not very old, healthy enough and if I die then there’s not much more I can do, can I?
- pvorb 4y ago
  That's a bit too extreme, isn't it? The situation simply might change in one way or another. A skilled replacement might just appear at some point or the parts of the executive level they're fearing the most might leave. I've never seen a company without any changes in management personell over a decade.
  - Minor49er 4y ago
    Doesn't seem extreme at all to me. I used to work at a place that would stress the importance of keeping implementations easy to understand and documentation up to date in case "[team member] gets hit by a bus tomorrow and we have to replace him." (Some people apparently thought this was too macabre so they would try to change it to "they won the lottery and quit instantly," but the engineering team thought this to be a less likely scenario than getting hit by a bus)
wpietri 4y ago
> I fear what will replace me if I leave. Right? I've had this conversation with so many techies-turned-leaders. The way I look at it, managing means I've given up my chance at doing the fun work so I can create a context where other people can get shit done in a way that's effective and rewarding. That does require being very technical, because you have to have a feel for the work and the issues. But it also requires giving up being very technical, because you just don't have the time or the headspace to get lost in a good problem. It's a conundrum, and it's why Charity Majors' "Engineer/Manager Pendulum" resonates for me: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/ https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum...
givemeethekeys 4y ago
I've reported directly to good CTOs and really bad ones. The shitty ones: - Either never built trust or broke trust. - Were impulsive and reactionary. - Didn't rely on the expertise and skills of their reports as much as they told them what to do because they already knew everything. Didn't ask questions. Gave orders. - Literally used the words, "because I said so". - Believed that they were the only one doing any real work. Used the words, "easy" to describe work that was assigned to their reports. - Were very insecure - questions were often received as challenges to authority. - Set in place policies which they were the first to violate. - Their actions and their words disagreed. - Lost their best people within a year.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  The challenge in technical leadership is letting go of the specifics and delegating them and only in very rare specific circumstances issuing orders. There are a lot of "person who did everything" types who end up in leadership positions who try very hard to continue doing everything of any importance instead of appropriate delegation and leadership instead of control. I've had that problem, it's hard to let go.
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    This is such a good point. And doing this right can result in the technical leader feeling like they aren't providing value, especially if they are used to being great at solving technical problems themselves in the past. The manager dopamine loop is much longer and can at times not exist at all and you are still doing it right. I can see that it might be very tempting to try to get the feeling of accomplishment my stealing it from folks by disempowering them.
- ctothrowaway8 4y ago
  This comment may have been the tipping point into seriously considering quitting. Deep down I already felt it coming on but seeing it laid out like this hit home. The person currently in that leadership position fits every one of these bullet points and somehow remains in that position. All their direct reports just seem to accept this lot in life, everyone else does their best to avoid drawing their ire. I imagine that maybe something will happen and they will get the picture and actually grow as a leader. It's growing old though and I miss being on a team wherein this wasn't the day to day morale. Maybe they'll read this. Maybe it's you. Please take this seriously. You could do better.
citizenpaul 4y ago
I was a CTO once. Transparency is not your job. You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors". If you don't they will start getting anxiety or looking for new jobs instead of pressing on. This could actually be the difference between what makes things fail or succeed. You're job is not to be transparent or honest. Its to make sure everyone stays productive and on track. This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point. >My most frequently accessed cloud console pages are the billing sections. Lol yep. Eventually some of those reports will hate you as well even if you do everything perfectly. Its inevitable from being in charge. You may not find out till running into them years later and they just shrug you off when you try to say hi. I think I was good at the job, though of course I'm biased but even looking back there are very few things I would change. I really did try and will never feel like I was inadequate even though the company eventually did go under due to bad investments the owner made.
- capableweb 4y ago
  > Transparency is not your job. > You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what > This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point. Following this advice is another way of loosing employees, at least I'd leave a company quickly if the CTO started lying about potential problems not being problems. In the end, depends on the company. Usually the company I've worked in, have valued transparency, so employees can decide themselves if they want to continue working there or not, when there are potential issues. Not sure who it'll be good for if things are delayed in a project, you might be able to ship a good product but then the executive team is all like "Noooo, what you're hearing is just rumors, everything is fine and all will be good when we release".
  - NegativeLatency 4y ago
    > I'd leave a company quickly if the CTO started lying about potential problems not being problems Absolutely. In the case of someone saying a clear problem is not a problem, we have a few cases: The first, they're lying to me, in that case they're dishonest and I dont want to work there, they're probably just covering it up to make some money and then move on when things fall apart. The second, they're incompetent and actually don't realize it's a problem, why would I want to work for someone who's bad at their job. Probably others but I can't think of them
spit2wind 4y ago
Thank you for sharing how you feel. It's incredibly brave. > I fear what will replace me if I leave I admire the respect and dedication you have toward your reports (I assume the fear comes from what a successor may do to your reports rather than what a successor may do to the company). However, if it falls on your to protect your reports from the company, then it may be worth considering how well the company's values align with your own. A terrible outcome would be to compromise your integrity for the sake of the company. If you leave, it's still possible to help those currently under you. Whether or not they would still want your help depends on your integrity.
baby 4y ago
If I can give an advice quite different from the other comments: don't sweat it. You're not becoming responsible for the success of your team or your company, you're just taking a different role. Things would probably work fine without you. Hell, companies can run for months and years without CEOs (one of my previous company did). What you can do is two fold: be technically involved (this is the topic of this thread) and be a good leader. The latter means a lot of things, but IMO it also means transparency. I'm really sad to see other comments saying that your role is to not be transparent, I totally disagree.
CallMeJim 4y ago
This reads like a LinkedIn post.
- dijit 4y ago
  The real CTO was the friends we made along the way.
zerr 4y ago
That's why becoming a CTO shouldn't be treated as promotion or "next level". And there should be the same compensation level for individual contributors.
insane_dreamer 4y ago
Maybe the question is what is (or should be) the role of the CTO. A lot of what you describe sounds more like Chief Product Officer (or Head of Product) rather than CTO.
throwawaymaths 4y ago
You need to be technical enough to say no to a partnership, acquisition, or technical strategy that is bullshit. Most of the time, the Spidey sense to make that kind of a due dill judgement only comes through having been a technical employee. (Though having been a technical employee by no means guarantees that, either)
phphphphp 4y ago
You’re leading with fear and anxiety, you’re letting that fear and anxiety trap you. There’s a great deal of value in thoughtfulness, in kindness, in using your passion to lead, but that value is often lost when the motivation for these behaviours is anxiety. A leader is as much what they signal as what they do. There’s a variety of options available to you, options that can deliver the best outcome for the business, your reports and yourself — many of which can be fantastic outcomes for all. Ultimately, building a business is a relay and you will at some point have to pass on the baton: if you fear that inevitability, that needs to be an immediate focus. What can you do to ensure that you can pass the baton on with confidence? Positioning yourself as not “the CTO” but rather “the person establishing the business’ approach to technology” (which is achieved by utilising the CTO role today) can be a very powerful shift in attitude: you’re setting the technology organisation up for the baton to be handed over to the person ready to lead the next stage with confidence. If I were in your position, I’d be talking with the other leadership in the business and clearly communicating that you don’t want this role indefinitely, I’d put a plan together for the next 12 - 18 months that involves bringing someone in to replace you, someone for you to pass the baton to. A bad outcome for the business would be you spending the next 12 months silently stewing in your own anxiety and fear and then have a breakdown and disappear without any notice and the business is thrown into chaos. As a leader, you don’t need to be perfect or a brilliant jack of all trades or a genius or even the smartest in the room, but you do need to operate with confidence though. If you don’t have confidence in something, focus on getting the confidence. (For what it’s worth, the shift from where you are now to where you need to be is almost exclusively in attitude, it’s not some insurmountable challenge.)
lawgimenez 4y ago
Congratulations for becoming a CTO but also it terrifies me to think that my CTO is terrified of his/her work. Of course as IC I will never know this but I just don’t get it. I feel like CTOs has been in management jobs at some point before becoming part of the Cs. I feel like in your narration you went from IC to CTO directly. I may be wrong.
definitelyhuman 4y ago
If your org is 10 moving to 50 in a few months then you have a BIG change ahead. The good news is that you are responsible for how your team operates. You've identified problems, and now you get to fix them - not by coding, but through leadership & culture. This isn't to say it's easy, it's a massive challenge, but it is yours to solve and does require technical knowledge and skill. No first time CTO's had it figured out either - continue to show the courage to ask advice (as you've done here) and figure it out bit by bit. Nobody has made your org before - there's no playbook only prior work. The flip side is if that is of zero interest, you're likely in the wrong role. No shame, depends what motivates you.
austinjp 4y ago
I'm curious about why and how you've become a CTO? Presumably, you don't have to do it if you don't want to. If that's true, be nice to yourself and remember that on a regular basis :) What you've described is pretty much the way many CTOs would describe the job. Don't worry. Treat it like any new discipline. Seek out expertise and learn from it. Make notes and crib sheets and read them regularly (they might be about financial management, or about people management, whatever you need). Find a mentor if you can. Don't burn out. Don't be a jerk (ignore the more outspoken comments in this thread, you are clearly not well suited to sociopathy, congratulations). You will not be able to please everyone all the time. You can't be everyone's friend all the time. But you can probably be decent to everyone nearly all the time. Lying is shitty. Really, really shitty. Think about it. Doubt is normal, but check yourself for imposter syndrome on the reg. Ask yourself: what do you want? If you don't like who you're becoming, move on. Good luck :)
- dijit 4y ago
  Apologies for not responding sooner. The reason I became a CTO is three-fold: Firstly, I was recommended for the position by the managing director of a large (the largest?) Swedish games company, so I figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Secondly, I asked my old CTO if it was a good fit for me as I’d been a manager before and I felt I preferred IC, I also have an abrasive way of communicating which worried me greatly, his response was that the abrasive parts of my communication style will melt away because it is bore out of frustration. Finally; I have worked in meritocratic cultures but only when there was significant external political pressure from the publisher. Theoretically I could replicate that culture but without the political cruft; additionally I would be in a position to set the company up with long-term technological investments and partnerships: which I was trying to do before but managers are usually focused on short term goals. > Find a mentor if you can. > Don't burn out. > Don't be a jerk (ignore the more outspoken comments in this thread, you are clearly not well suited to sociopathy, congratulations). > You will not be able to please everyone all the time. You can't be everyone's friend all the time. But you can probably be decent to everyone nearly all the time. This is good advice and I appreciate it greatly, I will wear these words going forward. Thank you. :)
xedrac 4y ago
The worst CTO I ever worked for thought he was the expert because he "cut his teeth on assembly" in college. He indirectly micro-managed everyone with a "goal setting" farce. You had to submit very specific goals each quarter. He would then revise all of your goals for you, and give them back. They were a curated list of tasks that you had to accomplish. You would then be graded on those tasks and publicly shamed. He was so proud of his acronym "SPEED" and believed he was a great culture shaper. I've never worked in a more toxic environment, and never in a less productive one. We would have been 10x more productive if we didn't have a CTO at all.
dicriseg 4y ago
Is this your first time managing people as well?
- dijit 4y ago
  No, but first time for so many, I’ve had 3 direct reports before and in my last company I had 1
fisherjeff 4y ago
Sounds like you are making the technical to leadership transition extremely quickly. I think you will find that it’s the speed of that transition, rather than the transition itself, that is giving you difficulty. One thing that has helped me, and may be helpful to you as well, is to look at your new role as an engineering problem. Logistics and process may not feel technical but they 100% are, and if you approach them with the same problem solving mindset and intellectual curiosity as, say, a coding task, you will enjoy them a lot more, and may even find that you become very successful at them.
ksec 4y ago
I really like the model Apple are using is C grade only for CEO, Operation and Finance. The others are SVPs. There is no need for a CTO. The first job of an SVP is to stand up to the CEOs when they are pushing for impossible deadlines. The second job of the SVP is to stand up to CFO when they want layoffs. Or fight for more resources when they are pushed to the limit. The third job, arguably the only thing that is technical, is to stop your sub coordinate pushing for what ever that is hyped in the industry to be used within your company. It may sound easy in a small startup, doing the above three things in a large company is easily a full time job.
- viridian 4y ago
  The biggest problem I've seen with this in implementation is that rolling the technical part of any organization under operations is usually disastrous, because ops will generally aim to keep their footprint as small as possible, and do the absolute bare minimum to try and retain talent. It's a model that heavily encourages thinking of technology as a cost center, developers (with domain knowledge) as easily swappable or replaceable units, and vendor SaaS as a preferred solution in almost every instance. Personally I think having a CIO makes a lot of sense, even if you ditch the CTO, CISO, CDO, CAO panel that is generally subordinate to the CIO anyways.

by dijit 4y ago

brightball 4y ago

If you have that much chaos that you’re insulating your team from, it sounds like you need to try to set some barriers. I’m not sure how anyone could be expected to function in the environment you’re describing. *I have never worked in games.

vasco 4y ago

> but I fear what will replace me if I leave So you'll never retire or die?

dijit 4y ago
I’m not very old, healthy enough and if I die then there’s not much more I can do, can I?
pvorb 4y ago
That's a bit too extreme, isn't it? The situation simply might change in one way or another. A skilled replacement might just appear at some point or the parts of the executive level they're fearing the most might leave. I've never seen a company without any changes in management personell over a decade.
- Minor49er 4y ago
  Doesn't seem extreme at all to me. I used to work at a place that would stress the importance of keeping implementations easy to understand and documentation up to date in case "[team member] gets hit by a bus tomorrow and we have to replace him." (Some people apparently thought this was too macabre so they would try to change it to "they won the lottery and quit instantly," but the engineering team thought this to be a less likely scenario than getting hit by a bus)

wpietri 4y ago

> I fear what will replace me if I leave. Right? I've had this conversation with so many techies-turned-leaders. The way I look at it, managing means I've given up my chance at doing the fun work so I can create a context where other people can get shit done in a way that's effective and rewarding. That does require being very technical, because you have to have a feel for the work and the issues. But it also requires giving up being very technical, because you just don't have the time or the headspace to get lost in a good problem. It's a conundrum, and it's why Charity Majors' "Engineer/Manager Pendulum" resonates for me: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/ https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum...

givemeethekeys 4y ago

I've reported directly to good CTOs and really bad ones. The shitty ones: - Either never built trust or broke trust. - Were impulsive and reactionary. - Didn't rely on the expertise and skills of their reports as much as they told them what to do because they already knew everything. Didn't ask questions. Gave orders. - Literally used the words, "because I said so". - Believed that they were the only one doing any real work. Used the words, "easy" to describe work that was assigned to their reports. - Were very insecure - questions were often received as challenges to authority. - Set in place policies which they were the first to violate. - Their actions and their words disagreed. - Lost their best people within a year.

colechristensen 4y ago
The challenge in technical leadership is letting go of the specifics and delegating them and only in very rare specific circumstances issuing orders. There are a lot of "person who did everything" types who end up in leadership positions who try very hard to continue doing everything of any importance instead of appropriate delegation and leadership instead of control. I've had that problem, it's hard to let go.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  This is such a good point. And doing this right can result in the technical leader feeling like they aren't providing value, especially if they are used to being great at solving technical problems themselves in the past. The manager dopamine loop is much longer and can at times not exist at all and you are still doing it right. I can see that it might be very tempting to try to get the feeling of accomplishment my stealing it from folks by disempowering them.
ctothrowaway8 4y ago
This comment may have been the tipping point into seriously considering quitting. Deep down I already felt it coming on but seeing it laid out like this hit home. The person currently in that leadership position fits every one of these bullet points and somehow remains in that position. All their direct reports just seem to accept this lot in life, everyone else does their best to avoid drawing their ire. I imagine that maybe something will happen and they will get the picture and actually grow as a leader. It's growing old though and I miss being on a team wherein this wasn't the day to day morale. Maybe they'll read this. Maybe it's you. Please take this seriously. You could do better.

citizenpaul 4y ago

I was a CTO once. Transparency is not your job. You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors". If you don't they will start getting anxiety or looking for new jobs instead of pressing on. This could actually be the difference between what makes things fail or succeed. You're job is not to be transparent or honest. Its to make sure everyone stays productive and on track. This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point. >My most frequently accessed cloud console pages are the billing sections. Lol yep. Eventually some of those reports will hate you as well even if you do everything perfectly. Its inevitable from being in charge. You may not find out till running into them years later and they just shrug you off when you try to say hi. I think I was good at the job, though of course I'm biased but even looking back there are very few things I would change. I really did try and will never feel like I was inadequate even though the company eventually did go under due to bad investments the owner made.

capableweb 4y ago
> Transparency is not your job. > You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what > This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point. Following this advice is another way of loosing employees, at least I'd leave a company quickly if the CTO started lying about potential problems not being problems. In the end, depends on the company. Usually the company I've worked in, have valued transparency, so employees can decide themselves if they want to continue working there or not, when there are potential issues. Not sure who it'll be good for if things are delayed in a project, you might be able to ship a good product but then the executive team is all like "Noooo, what you're hearing is just rumors, everything is fine and all will be good when we release".
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  > I'd leave a company quickly if the CTO started lying about potential problems not being problems Absolutely. In the case of someone saying a clear problem is not a problem, we have a few cases: The first, they're lying to me, in that case they're dishonest and I dont want to work there, they're probably just covering it up to make some money and then move on when things fall apart. The second, they're incompetent and actually don't realize it's a problem, why would I want to work for someone who's bad at their job. Probably others but I can't think of them

spit2wind 4y ago

Thank you for sharing how you feel. It's incredibly brave. > I fear what will replace me if I leave I admire the respect and dedication you have toward your reports (I assume the fear comes from what a successor may do to your reports rather than what a successor may do to the company). However, if it falls on your to protect your reports from the company, then it may be worth considering how well the company's values align with your own. A terrible outcome would be to compromise your integrity for the sake of the company. If you leave, it's still possible to help those currently under you. Whether or not they would still want your help depends on your integrity.

baby 4y ago

If I can give an advice quite different from the other comments: don't sweat it. You're not becoming responsible for the success of your team or your company, you're just taking a different role. Things would probably work fine without you. Hell, companies can run for months and years without CEOs (one of my previous company did). What you can do is two fold: be technically involved (this is the topic of this thread) and be a good leader. The latter means a lot of things, but IMO it also means transparency. I'm really sad to see other comments saying that your role is to not be transparent, I totally disagree.

CallMeJim 4y ago

This reads like a LinkedIn post.

dijit 4y ago
The real CTO was the friends we made along the way.

zerr 4y ago

That's why becoming a CTO shouldn't be treated as promotion or "next level". And there should be the same compensation level for individual contributors.

insane_dreamer 4y ago

Maybe the question is what is (or should be) the role of the CTO. A lot of what you describe sounds more like Chief Product Officer (or Head of Product) rather than CTO.

throwawaymaths 4y ago

You need to be technical enough to say no to a partnership, acquisition, or technical strategy that is bullshit. Most of the time, the Spidey sense to make that kind of a due dill judgement only comes through having been a technical employee. (Though having been a technical employee by no means guarantees that, either)

phphphphp 4y ago

You’re leading with fear and anxiety, you’re letting that fear and anxiety trap you. There’s a great deal of value in thoughtfulness, in kindness, in using your passion to lead, but that value is often lost when the motivation for these behaviours is anxiety. A leader is as much what they signal as what they do. There’s a variety of options available to you, options that can deliver the best outcome for the business, your reports and yourself — many of which can be fantastic outcomes for all. Ultimately, building a business is a relay and you will at some point have to pass on the baton: if you fear that inevitability, that needs to be an immediate focus. What can you do to ensure that you can pass the baton on with confidence? Positioning yourself as not “the CTO” but rather “the person establishing the business’ approach to technology” (which is achieved by utilising the CTO role today) can be a very powerful shift in attitude: you’re setting the technology organisation up for the baton to be handed over to the person ready to lead the next stage with confidence. If I were in your position, I’d be talking with the other leadership in the business and clearly communicating that you don’t want this role indefinitely, I’d put a plan together for the next 12 - 18 months that involves bringing someone in to replace you, someone for you to pass the baton to. A bad outcome for the business would be you spending the next 12 months silently stewing in your own anxiety and fear and then have a breakdown and disappear without any notice and the business is thrown into chaos. As a leader, you don’t need to be perfect or a brilliant jack of all trades or a genius or even the smartest in the room, but you do need to operate with confidence though. If you don’t have confidence in something, focus on getting the confidence. (For what it’s worth, the shift from where you are now to where you need to be is almost exclusively in attitude, it’s not some insurmountable challenge.)

lawgimenez 4y ago

Congratulations for becoming a CTO but also it terrifies me to think that my CTO is terrified of his/her work. Of course as IC I will never know this but I just don’t get it. I feel like CTOs has been in management jobs at some point before becoming part of the Cs. I feel like in your narration you went from IC to CTO directly. I may be wrong.

definitelyhuman 4y ago

If your org is 10 moving to 50 in a few months then you have a BIG change ahead. The good news is that you are responsible for how your team operates. You've identified problems, and now you get to fix them - not by coding, but through leadership & culture. This isn't to say it's easy, it's a massive challenge, but it is yours to solve and does require technical knowledge and skill. No first time CTO's had it figured out either - continue to show the courage to ask advice (as you've done here) and figure it out bit by bit. Nobody has made your org before - there's no playbook only prior work. The flip side is if that is of zero interest, you're likely in the wrong role. No shame, depends what motivates you.

austinjp 4y ago

I'm curious about why and how you've become a CTO? Presumably, you don't have to do it if you don't want to. If that's true, be nice to yourself and remember that on a regular basis :) What you've described is pretty much the way many CTOs would describe the job. Don't worry. Treat it like any new discipline. Seek out expertise and learn from it. Make notes and crib sheets and read them regularly (they might be about financial management, or about people management, whatever you need). Find a mentor if you can. Don't burn out. Don't be a jerk (ignore the more outspoken comments in this thread, you are clearly not well suited to sociopathy, congratulations). You will not be able to please everyone all the time. You can't be everyone's friend all the time. But you can probably be decent to everyone nearly all the time. Lying is shitty. Really, really shitty. Think about it. Doubt is normal, but check yourself for imposter syndrome on the reg. Ask yourself: what do you want? If you don't like who you're becoming, move on. Good luck :)

dijit 4y ago
Apologies for not responding sooner. The reason I became a CTO is three-fold: Firstly, I was recommended for the position by the managing director of a large (the largest?) Swedish games company, so I figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Secondly, I asked my old CTO if it was a good fit for me as I’d been a manager before and I felt I preferred IC, I also have an abrasive way of communicating which worried me greatly, his response was that the abrasive parts of my communication style will melt away because it is bore out of frustration. Finally; I have worked in meritocratic cultures but only when there was significant external political pressure from the publisher. Theoretically I could replicate that culture but without the political cruft; additionally I would be in a position to set the company up with long-term technological investments and partnerships: which I was trying to do before but managers are usually focused on short term goals. > Find a mentor if you can. > Don't burn out. > Don't be a jerk (ignore the more outspoken comments in this thread, you are clearly not well suited to sociopathy, congratulations). > You will not be able to please everyone all the time. You can't be everyone's friend all the time. But you can probably be decent to everyone nearly all the time. This is good advice and I appreciate it greatly, I will wear these words going forward. Thank you. :)

xedrac 4y ago

The worst CTO I ever worked for thought he was the expert because he "cut his teeth on assembly" in college. He indirectly micro-managed everyone with a "goal setting" farce. You had to submit very specific goals each quarter. He would then revise all of your goals for you, and give them back. They were a curated list of tasks that you had to accomplish. You would then be graded on those tasks and publicly shamed. He was so proud of his acronym "SPEED" and believed he was a great culture shaper. I've never worked in a more toxic environment, and never in a less productive one. We would have been 10x more productive if we didn't have a CTO at all.

dicriseg 4y ago

Is this your first time managing people as well?

dijit 4y ago
No, but first time for so many, I’ve had 3 direct reports before and in my last company I had 1

fisherjeff 4y ago

Sounds like you are making the technical to leadership transition extremely quickly. I think you will find that it’s the speed of that transition, rather than the transition itself, that is giving you difficulty. One thing that has helped me, and may be helpful to you as well, is to look at your new role as an engineering problem. Logistics and process may not feel technical but they 100% are, and if you approach them with the same problem solving mindset and intellectual curiosity as, say, a coding task, you will enjoy them a lot more, and may even find that you become very successful at them.

ksec 4y ago

I really like the model Apple are using is C grade only for CEO, Operation and Finance. The others are SVPs. There is no need for a CTO. The first job of an SVP is to stand up to the CEOs when they are pushing for impossible deadlines. The second job of the SVP is to stand up to CFO when they want layoffs. Or fight for more resources when they are pushed to the limit. The third job, arguably the only thing that is technical, is to stop your sub coordinate pushing for what ever that is hyped in the industry to be used within your company. It may sound easy in a small startup, doing the above three things in a large company is easily a full time job.

viridian 4y ago
The biggest problem I've seen with this in implementation is that rolling the technical part of any organization under operations is usually disastrous, because ops will generally aim to keep their footprint as small as possible, and do the absolute bare minimum to try and retain talent. It's a model that heavily encourages thinking of technology as a cost center, developers (with domain knowledge) as easily swappable or replaceable units, and vendor SaaS as a preferred solution in almost every instance. Personally I think having a CIO makes a lot of sense, even if you ditch the CTO, CISO, CDO, CAO panel that is generally subordinate to the CIO anyways.