IMHO they ought to have a developer background. That doesn't mean they need to be an expert in DBMS design or whatever, but they should know enough to know whe

IMHO they ought to have a developer background. That doesn't mean they need to be an expert in DBMS design or whatever, but they should know enough to know when one of their reports is talking BS. I once worked for a CTO who threw out all our Linux systems and replaced them with Solaris (early 2000s) because "Linux couldn't scale", at the behest of our database architect who was basically just trying to increase his own empire and budget. One of the stupidest and most costly decisions, that also demoralised the rest of the team.