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The job of a CTO is strategy. The last thing you want is a manager that codes. They always end up either being shitty managers who don’t do the things that I

The job of a CTO is strategy. The last thing you want is a manager that codes. They always end up either being shitty managers who don’t do the things that I need from a manager - making sure the team gets the resources we need, prioritization, big picture, etc - or they end up being shitty developers because they can’t keep their commitments because of management responsibilities. Development is not a “super power”. Developers are a dime a dozen and if you look at the leveling guidelines of every well known tech company, how well you code only makes a difference up to the mid level. Knowing what to develop, knowing how to deal with business, how to lead an implementation, managing trade offs, “dealing with ambiguity”, etc is the differentiator.

cyberax 2y ago
> The job of a CTO is strategy. The last thing you want is a manager that codes. For a large company the size of Google? Yes. For a startup? No.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  For even a 20-30 person company. My CTO at the last startup I was working for was constantly flying to talk to customers - B2B with long sales cycles. He was the first technical person that the CxOs at the other companies spoke to. I find it quite funny when startups reach out to me about a “CTO” position that is really just a glorified team lead where I would be doing more hands on work and less strategy (with lower pay) than I was doing as a mid level (L5) employee when I was working at AWS (Professional Services). I’ve interviewed former “CTOs” at startups that never did handle the scope of work, budgets and strategy that we expect from our “staff” level employees (my level now) at the medium size company I work at.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > For even a 20-30 person company. My CTO at the last startup I was working for was constantly flying to talk to customers - B2B with long sales cycles. He was the first technical person that the CxOs at the other companies spoke to. That's really not a job for the CTO. It's a job for a sales engineer (with whatever their CxO title is), and it requires a different skill set. You need to be able to extract the product requirements from the customer, and to distill them for other teams. You don't necessarily need to be able to guide their implementation. > I find it quite funny when startups reach out to me about a “CTO” position that is really just a glorified team lead But that's exactly what a CTO position is! Their job is to lead the technical teams, on the company level. And a good CTO will know how to scale up. When you're working at a 10-people startup, you'll need to get into the details of the code on the actual "team lead" scale. Once you grow into a larger company, the job becomes a bit more abstract. I worked at L6/L7 positions in AWS, and it indeed is a much more relaxed place if you want it to be. Being a CTO in a startup is way more stressful.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      A CxO doesn’t want to talk to a sales engineer who is not technical. They want to speak to someone on their level. The sales engineer defines the problem space and the customer needs. But isn’t technical enough to design a solution or know the feasibility of a solution. I’m not in sales. I am the first deep technical person that a customer talks to (consulting). Even for projects at AWS ProServe, the SA’s were sales and unless they were a “specialist SA” weren’t technical. But they came to the consultants (full time employees) in ProServe to do the technical deep dives and lead the implementations.
      - cyberax 2y ago
        > A CxO doesn’t want to talk to a sales engineer who is not technical. They want to speak to someone on their level Well, yes. That's why you invent a CxO position (Chief Sales Officer?) or maybe "VP of Engineering" for it. Or you can do the reverse, "CTO" can be a de-facto CSO, and you can have a separate CxO position for the technical stuff. > I’m not in sales. I am the first deep technical person that a customer talks to (consulting). This means that you're in sales :) I think the distinction here matters. CTO is a more inwards-facing position, they are responsible for formulating and executing the technical plans and maintaining the quality of the product. In other words: CEO - "we need to get the city of San Francisco as our customer" CSO - "San Francisco needs a bridge" CTO - "we can build a cable-stayed bridge across the Golden Gate" Tech Lead - "we can use 1 meter cross-section cable stays to construct a cable-stayed bridge across the Golden Gate" In reality, especially in startups, there's always going to be some level of responsibility sharing.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        > This means that you're in sales :) You didn’t have to be mean :) But the other half of my job is leading the project once the contract is signed
        cyberax 2y ago
        There's nothing wrong with working in sales! No kink shaming here. Startups usually require people to wear several hats at once. That's normal. But suppose that your company grows to be 20 times larger. Would you still be working with customers or directing the projects to implement their requirements? You probably won't have bandwidth for both roles.

cyberax 2y ago

> The job of a CTO is strategy. The last thing you want is a manager that codes. For a large company the size of Google? Yes. For a startup? No.

scarface_74 2y ago
For even a 20-30 person company. My CTO at the last startup I was working for was constantly flying to talk to customers - B2B with long sales cycles. He was the first technical person that the CxOs at the other companies spoke to. I find it quite funny when startups reach out to me about a “CTO” position that is really just a glorified team lead where I would be doing more hands on work and less strategy (with lower pay) than I was doing as a mid level (L5) employee when I was working at AWS (Professional Services). I’ve interviewed former “CTOs” at startups that never did handle the scope of work, budgets and strategy that we expect from our “staff” level employees (my level now) at the medium size company I work at.
- cyberax 2y ago
  > For even a 20-30 person company. My CTO at the last startup I was working for was constantly flying to talk to customers - B2B with long sales cycles. He was the first technical person that the CxOs at the other companies spoke to. That's really not a job for the CTO. It's a job for a sales engineer (with whatever their CxO title is), and it requires a different skill set. You need to be able to extract the product requirements from the customer, and to distill them for other teams. You don't necessarily need to be able to guide their implementation. > I find it quite funny when startups reach out to me about a “CTO” position that is really just a glorified team lead But that's exactly what a CTO position is! Their job is to lead the technical teams, on the company level. And a good CTO will know how to scale up. When you're working at a 10-people startup, you'll need to get into the details of the code on the actual "team lead" scale. Once you grow into a larger company, the job becomes a bit more abstract. I worked at L6/L7 positions in AWS, and it indeed is a much more relaxed place if you want it to be. Being a CTO in a startup is way more stressful.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    A CxO doesn’t want to talk to a sales engineer who is not technical. They want to speak to someone on their level. The sales engineer defines the problem space and the customer needs. But isn’t technical enough to design a solution or know the feasibility of a solution. I’m not in sales. I am the first deep technical person that a customer talks to (consulting). Even for projects at AWS ProServe, the SA’s were sales and unless they were a “specialist SA” weren’t technical. But they came to the consultants (full time employees) in ProServe to do the technical deep dives and lead the implementations.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > A CxO doesn’t want to talk to a sales engineer who is not technical. They want to speak to someone on their level Well, yes. That's why you invent a CxO position (Chief Sales Officer?) or maybe "VP of Engineering" for it. Or you can do the reverse, "CTO" can be a de-facto CSO, and you can have a separate CxO position for the technical stuff. > I’m not in sales. I am the first deep technical person that a customer talks to (consulting). This means that you're in sales :) I think the distinction here matters. CTO is a more inwards-facing position, they are responsible for formulating and executing the technical plans and maintaining the quality of the product. In other words: CEO - "we need to get the city of San Francisco as our customer" CSO - "San Francisco needs a bridge" CTO - "we can build a cable-stayed bridge across the Golden Gate" Tech Lead - "we can use 1 meter cross-section cable stays to construct a cable-stayed bridge across the Golden Gate" In reality, especially in startups, there's always going to be some level of responsibility sharing.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        > This means that you're in sales :) You didn’t have to be mean :) But the other half of my job is leading the project once the contract is signed
        cyberax 2y ago
        There's nothing wrong with working in sales! No kink shaming here. Startups usually require people to wear several hats at once. That's normal. But suppose that your company grows to be 20 times larger. Would you still be working with customers or directing the projects to implement their requirements? You probably won't have bandwidth for both roles.