I feel that as a CTO a lot of the respect I earn from our developers comes from me having a deep technical understanding not only about how things can be done,

I feel that as a CTO a lot of the respect I earn from our developers comes from me having a deep technical understanding not only about how things can be done, but also about the pitfalls and obvious issues that can make something fail. My experience as a software engineer definitely allows me to approach issues in a more understanding way and find alternative solutions that accommodates for them instead of finger pointing and shaming. I think a CTO should have a good understanding of the topological structure of the systems they're effectively responding for, and they should have an understanding of the feasibility of roadmaps. A CTO without technical knowledge cannot provide suggestions or iterative steps when some plan goes south other than generic coaching. I've been in a lot of cases where our developers were stuck because they couldn't make decisions outside of their team. I feel my job isn't to simply respond to the CEO but to ensure that friction is removed between the teams. I would simply be unable to do this properly if I wouldn't have a deep understanding of what every team is working on, how their systems connect, how their stacks work and what budget constraints we have (also what impact an alternative course would have on the budget). If your CTO is 10 levels removed from the developers that's a different thing, because then the job of the CTO is nothing but a glorified proxy for their direct reports to the CEO.