5 ms·

The question I would try and answer if I were in your shoes is the following: Does he want me to leave the company or does he want me to stop writing productio

The question I would try and answer if I were in your shoes is the following: Does he want me to leave the company or does he want me to stop writing production code for the product? If its the first one, there is likely a personal issue between the two of you that needs to be resolved one way or another. If you think the second option is what he is really trying to communicate, then I would look for other opportunities to contribute to the company. It sucks to grasp your own limitations and admit that you might not be a good enough coder to contribute to the product at this point, but this is a critical time for the future of the product. Any technical debt acquired at this phase of development is going to be very costly to pay off later since you are developing the core of the system. However, you are a founder of the company, and I am assuming very passionate about the company's mission as well as financially motivated to see this thing through. There are tons of jobs that will need to be done as you guys grow, and each one of those is an opportunity for you to contribute above and beyond what a new hire off the street could accomplish. A lot of those jobs can also take advantage of your coding skills to either automate processes or utilize your deeper understanding of how the product works to better support it. This is of course assuming that you guys have the cash in the bank to pay you for this work, if that is not the case then the situation is a little trickier and you will have to explore other options.

saraid216 13y ago
> If you think the second option is what he is really trying to communicate, then I would look for other opportunities to contribute to the company. This was my thought. It would be worth looking into roles like developer evangelist, if it makes sense for your company: you're clearly technical enough to make things happen, and you have the domain knowledge to be very useful.
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
I was under the impression that "co-founder" carried a lot more weight than CTO; is this not the case? My gut feeling was that, if I were in the co-founder's shoes, I'd fire the CTO immediately.
- lawnchair_larry 13y ago
  This would be dumb though, because it would tank your company.
  - nextweek2 13y ago
    You are assuming that the CTO is the only CTO in the world.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    Leaving the situation as-is would tank that company. In a small team, infighting is a much bigger threat to survival than losing skills/results of any single individual.
    - emn13 12y ago
      Hmm, I'm sure infighting is bad, but often enough individuals do have skills and in particular experience with the setup and/or code and/or business contacts that the startup has made that you're not going to find a replacement nor train one without losing lots of time and money. Certainly that's an avoidable risk with effort, but I'm pretty sure that some level of infighting may be less risky than losing certain individuals.
  - enscr 13y ago
    A CTO with polarized vision would tank the company faster.
  - levosmetalo 12y ago
    So, if that would tank the company noone gets nothing. If he doesn't fire the CTO, he gets nothing and company may or may not get anything. To me, pretty clear situation what would I do. I would risk the company to save myself from certain loose.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- stevewilhelm 12y ago
marcus_holmes 13y ago
agree completely. I'd have a frank discussion with him and attempt to determine if this is political. If it is, fire him immediately even if there's short-term pain because the politics will fk the company anyway. If it's not political, and you agree with his assessment of your production code, then there's an R&D role that probably needs filling and that you've already proven you can do - finding profitable market niches and creating prototype products/services to address them. Don't sweat being a "bad coder". Every coder (yes, even the awesome ones) feels a little worried that their code is bad, and he's just playing on this insecurity that we all have. Part of the 'your code is crap' syndrome we see in tech is just defensive projection. You managed to build a production system that is gaining traction, which is amazing. Go do more of that :)
- dchichkov 13y ago
  I'd second your words about "bad coder" arguments. This argument is ridiculous, particularly if he had managed to to build a production system that is gaining traction. And did it single-handed (or in a team of two). I would disagree however about the advice to 'fire him immediately because the politics will fk the company'. The problem is, the moment there is some money on the table politics and power play starts. Unavoidable.
  - gaius 13y ago
    You can be a terrible coder and build an MVP in PHP or something. Doesn't mean you can scale it, both in terms of adding new features, or in terms of increased traffic.
    - dchichkov 13y ago
      Um. That kind of thinking is pretty close to my own from some years back. Not any more, but who knows, I may change my way of thinking again ;) In the moment I'm just reserving my judgement regarding skills of other developers. And only make judgements regarding particular pieces of code, mostly trying to find positive things in it, rather than negative ones. Out of curiosity, a personal question. In terms of years of active software development, what's your level of experience? Is it say, 20 years of building code for moneys? Two times less than than? Two times more? You don't have to answer.
gedrap 13y ago
I agree with you. Of course, I don't know the full story but given what I have seen in the past I would guess it's the second option. Some of the coders simply can't deal (or, more accurately, their egos) when someone less skilled is above them in the hierarchy. If this is the case, I'd say just fire him. It sucks now, but will save from a lot of pain later on. For instance, when you hire someone else who might happen to be less skilled than the CTO. Good software developers know that there are less skilled people, they used to be like them, and deal with that appropriately (i.e. with respect and without offending). And then there are prima donnas who can't deal with working with another human being for whatever the reason is. At the end of the day, being a good software developer is not all about writing code. Far from it.
vayarajesh 13y ago
I agree completely.

saraid216 13y ago

> If you think the second option is what he is really trying to communicate, then I would look for other opportunities to contribute to the company. This was my thought. It would be worth looking into roles like developer evangelist, if it makes sense for your company: you're clearly technical enough to make things happen, and you have the domain knowledge to be very useful.

rmrfrmrf 13y ago

I was under the impression that "co-founder" carried a lot more weight than CTO; is this not the case? My gut feeling was that, if I were in the co-founder's shoes, I'd fire the CTO immediately.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago
This would be dumb though, because it would tank your company.
- nextweek2 13y ago
  You are assuming that the CTO is the only CTO in the world.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  Leaving the situation as-is would tank that company. In a small team, infighting is a much bigger threat to survival than losing skills/results of any single individual.
  - emn13 12y ago
    Hmm, I'm sure infighting is bad, but often enough individuals do have skills and in particular experience with the setup and/or code and/or business contacts that the startup has made that you're not going to find a replacement nor train one without losing lots of time and money. Certainly that's an avoidable risk with effort, but I'm pretty sure that some level of infighting may be less risky than losing certain individuals.
- enscr 13y ago
  A CTO with polarized vision would tank the company faster.
- levosmetalo 12y ago
  So, if that would tank the company noone gets nothing. If he doesn't fire the CTO, he gets nothing and company may or may not get anything. To me, pretty clear situation what would I do. I would risk the company to save myself from certain loose.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
stevewilhelm 12y ago

marcus_holmes 13y ago

agree completely. I'd have a frank discussion with him and attempt to determine if this is political. If it is, fire him immediately even if there's short-term pain because the politics will fk the company anyway. If it's not political, and you agree with his assessment of your production code, then there's an R&D role that probably needs filling and that you've already proven you can do - finding profitable market niches and creating prototype products/services to address them. Don't sweat being a "bad coder". Every coder (yes, even the awesome ones) feels a little worried that their code is bad, and he's just playing on this insecurity that we all have. Part of the 'your code is crap' syndrome we see in tech is just defensive projection. You managed to build a production system that is gaining traction, which is amazing. Go do more of that :)

dchichkov 13y ago
I'd second your words about "bad coder" arguments. This argument is ridiculous, particularly if he had managed to to build a production system that is gaining traction. And did it single-handed (or in a team of two). I would disagree however about the advice to 'fire him immediately because the politics will fk the company'. The problem is, the moment there is some money on the table politics and power play starts. Unavoidable.
- gaius 13y ago
  You can be a terrible coder and build an MVP in PHP or something. Doesn't mean you can scale it, both in terms of adding new features, or in terms of increased traffic.
  - dchichkov 13y ago
    Um. That kind of thinking is pretty close to my own from some years back. Not any more, but who knows, I may change my way of thinking again ;) In the moment I'm just reserving my judgement regarding skills of other developers. And only make judgements regarding particular pieces of code, mostly trying to find positive things in it, rather than negative ones. Out of curiosity, a personal question. In terms of years of active software development, what's your level of experience? Is it say, 20 years of building code for moneys? Two times less than than? Two times more? You don't have to answer.

gedrap 13y ago

I agree with you. Of course, I don't know the full story but given what I have seen in the past I would guess it's the second option. Some of the coders simply can't deal (or, more accurately, their egos) when someone less skilled is above them in the hierarchy. If this is the case, I'd say just fire him. It sucks now, but will save from a lot of pain later on. For instance, when you hire someone else who might happen to be less skilled than the CTO. Good software developers know that there are less skilled people, they used to be like them, and deal with that appropriately (i.e. with respect and without offending). And then there are prima donnas who can't deal with working with another human being for whatever the reason is. At the end of the day, being a good software developer is not all about writing code. Far from it.

vayarajesh 13y ago

I agree completely.