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At this point in time I would not work at a company where the cto is coding, unless the entire company is less than 10 people. The managerial job of a cto is hu

At this point in time I would not work at a company where the cto is coding, unless the entire company is less than 10 people. The managerial job of a cto is huge, so seeing them code is a big indication that management is not fulfilling their responsibilities, or doesn't understand the tremendous and necessary role of good management. [Response] - I know there are plenty of examples of good and bad CTOs who program or don't program, it's just been my experience that the likely situation resulting from a CTO coding is bad code and bad management. I see programming as something that generally requires full time attention to maintain good context, and good management is equally demanding.

djloche 12y ago
Exception: Carmack @ Oculus VR.
- jotux 12y ago
  >>>Exception<<<
Alex3917 12y ago
The problem is that if the CTO abstracts themselves completely from the technology, then you end up with VPs of engineering who get away with making decisions based solely on the tech rather than the larger business issues.
alex_anglin 12y ago
The CEO of my employer[1] still programs 'from time to time' [2] and I would say understands the role of good management better than 99% of CEOs out there. That the firm is privately held means that he's certainly fulfilling his responsibilities as well, if fiduciary duties matter to him. Ultimately, outcomes are what matter and few have better track records. [1] http://www.sas.com/en_us/company-information/executive-bios/jim-goodnight.html http://www.sas.com/en_us/company-information/executive-bios/... [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2014/05/12/an-interview-with-the-godfather-of-data-analytics-sass-jim-goodnight/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2014/05/12/an-intervie...
ef4 12y ago
I don't think a well-managed software company should keep everyone 100% allocated to their primary function. It's too brittle and it leaves too many potentially game-changing ideas unexplored. I would be happy to work at a company where everyone spends 10% of their time on skunkworks-type projects, or cross-training in a totally different part of the organization, and that would include the CTO sometimes writing code. (Obviously little startups don't have this luxury, but in those cases the CTO is justified in coding anyway.)
23david 12y ago
It can definitely be weird, and particularly so if the CTO is head of both the live operations (TechOps/Devops) and product-development (frontend/backend) engineering groups. Really hard to straddle both of those well.

djloche 12y ago

Exception: Carmack @ Oculus VR.

jotux 12y ago
>>>Exception<<<

Alex3917 12y ago

The problem is that if the CTO abstracts themselves completely from the technology, then you end up with VPs of engineering who get away with making decisions based solely on the tech rather than the larger business issues.

alex_anglin 12y ago

The CEO of my employer[1] still programs 'from time to time' [2] and I would say understands the role of good management better than 99% of CEOs out there. That the firm is privately held means that he's certainly fulfilling his responsibilities as well, if fiduciary duties matter to him. Ultimately, outcomes are what matter and few have better track records. [1] http://www.sas.com/en_us/company-information/executive-bios/jim-goodnight.html http://www.sas.com/en_us/company-information/executive-bios/... [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2014/05/12/an-interview-with-the-godfather-of-data-analytics-sass-jim-goodnight/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2014/05/12/an-intervie...

ef4 12y ago

I don't think a well-managed software company should keep everyone 100% allocated to their primary function. It's too brittle and it leaves too many potentially game-changing ideas unexplored. I would be happy to work at a company where everyone spends 10% of their time on skunkworks-type projects, or cross-training in a totally different part of the organization, and that would include the CTO sometimes writing code. (Obviously little startups don't have this luxury, but in those cases the CTO is justified in coding anyway.)

23david 12y ago

It can definitely be weird, and particularly so if the CTO is head of both the live operations (TechOps/Devops) and product-development (frontend/backend) engineering groups. Really hard to straddle both of those well.