It can help but it's not essential. Most coders make lousy managers and most mangers make lousy coders. Sometimes you find people that can do both. The meta qu

It can help but it's not essential. Most coders make lousy managers and most mangers make lousy coders. Sometimes you find people that can do both. The meta question here is do you need a person to manage you or can you perform at your peak without being micro managed. If so, you might be management material ;-). I've worked as a employee, freelancer, consultant and lately as a CTO. As a consultant you tell managers how to manage. When freelancing you don't lift a finger unless you are told by your client, who is not your manager (important to be able to tell the difference). If you start consulting them effectively, make sure you increase your rates. If you are an employee, you might have a career path that may involve you evolving into a manager. And as a CTO of a small company it's my job to make sure shit gets done. And sometimes that means getting hands on and leading by example. And sometimes that means delegating work and optimizing my time use. And sometimes I like having some fun. I hate delegating fun things. A CTO that isn't hands-on is not a CTO and cannot provide long term meaningful technical leadership. Any technical skills they have don't have a long shelf life. Companies with no CTO and a hands off VP of engineering are probably not technology companies. This is a problem if they are trying to be one. Or used to be one. I've consulted a few of those. I've also advised startup founders to not hire a CTO and instead find themselves a good VP of engineering. Because they weren't creating a tech company and their technical staff was OK but clearly not management material. In a startup, CTO is a founding role. A tech lead reports to the VP of engineering, a CTO reports to the CEO. Or sometimes is the CEO as well. Big difference. The VP of engineering is not a C level executive typically. They aren't co-founders. They don't hold a lot of equity. Good CTOs that can double being a decent VP of engineering are rare. Very different skill sets. The opposite is more common. In short, it all depends.