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Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
31–40 of 95 posts
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#32I flinch whenever I see people talking about "being a CTO", because there's really no such thing. The title doesn't really mean anything. In startupland, three possible (and possibly overlapping) meanings of the title are: 1. The corporate officer title a founder that isn't the CEO gets because they're on the board, purely as recognition of their seniority ("why is this person on the board?" "because they're the CTO.…
CTO is an actual role with well defined responsibilities in most companies. I’m sorry the ones you worked at sucked.
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#33No one is forcing you to name the role as "CTO" on your resume. Be creative.
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#34As much of a non-answer as this might seem, it will really come down to the people in your team and your new management which you won't really find out until the interviews and more realistically only when you're actually working with the new team.
If you have solid team members who are secure in what they know and their position they'll appreciate your broad(er) skillset and will want to work with you and it will be a non-issue. If anything they'll respect you tried something "beyond" what a normal senior engineer might do or get to do.
If you have one or more people who are insecure or "not an A-player" they'll likely view you as a threat to their career progression and you'll have to be cautious around these people.
A good / great manager wants people of diverse backgrounds and experiences, a mediocre manager might feel threatened by you because your insight might challenge his authority or the concept of it.
If you're interviewing with a team they'll likely know your background, but if it doesn't come up I wouldn't go out of my way to discuss your CTO role, just stick to the technology parts you've worked with.
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#35I flinch whenever I see people talking about "being a CTO", because there's really no such thing. The title doesn't really mean anything. In startupland, three possible (and possibly overlapping) meanings of the title are: 1. The corporate officer title a founder that isn't the CEO gets because they're on the board, purely as recognition of their seniority ("why is this person on the board?" "because they're the CTO.…
Small company would typically call their lead developer a CTO. Though I've seen once this was actually backed up by giving the person real share of the company and a seat on the board.
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#36I flinch whenever I see people talking about "being a CTO", because there's really no such thing. The title doesn't really mean anything. In startupland, three possible (and possibly overlapping) meanings of the title are: 1. The corporate officer title a founder that isn't the CEO gets because they're on the board, purely as recognition of their seniority ("why is this person on the board?" "because they're the CTO.…
Surprised to see such a cynical and negative comment from such a well known account. CTO at early stage startup is often the most important person in the company, technical delivery/execution, hiring, early decisions on which frameworks, integrations, helping with sales, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#37I've done this. I have friends who have done this. I'm personally a big fan of the "Engineer/Manager Pendulum" model described by Charity Majors: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum... Engineers who have spent some time in management are extremely valuable. They have a better grasp on how things work, they have better leadership skills (you don't need to be in a management role to provide use…
the only problem with this is that as an IC when your manager is really doing poorly and not grasping their job, its _really_ hard not to say 'dude wtf, that's just not right'. that can go pretty badly. so you really have to work hard to stay extra constructive and support them as if you were _their_ manager, without the authority that usually implies. and that's a heavy burden as an IC
As an eng manager, I always make it super clear (many times) when new engineers onboard they're always welcome to say "this doesn't make sense" ask for more details. Sometimes (maybe even often) they're right. I also enourage them to "assume good intent" from other devs and managers. Fundamentally no one manager knows everyone and no one engineer is right about everything.
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#38I'm an ex CTO. I ran the company as basically 2ic for 5 years before I quit. Before I quit they offered me profit share which was stupid because profit can easily change. I do not regret leaving at all from a mental health perspective. I was losing my friends, family and myself. I do regret leaving because afterwards I'm just a loser developer, lumped in with the guy that moves the button left a bit, when before I wa…
Not sure why this is getting downvoted, its a real experience.
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#39I did this from a hands-on CTO role at a 20-person startup to a senior engineer at a 200 person e-commerce outfit known nationally in the UK. I was miserable for a long time, and sat down one day and made a list of all the things I liked about the job and all the things I hated. Everything in the “like” column was dev work. Everything in the “hate” column was the management work. So I slept on it for one night, quit,…
> but it’ll get harder for me now I’m in my mid-40s.
Only bad thing about age is that in many organisations you will deal with people that don't have that much experience as yourself and they are not aware when they are making a mistake doing something, because they read about solution on some happy clappy blog or something. Less experience people tend to go into arguments more easily to defend their position and you have all seen this many times over. Unfortunately there is no easy way to get around this. Typically you get to explain things over and over and it may get really boring, as new cohorts come in. In most places the problems to solve are all the same. Take data from one place, transform it and put in another. Progression to management in that sense is where you get people to do all the boring stuff, that is still fun for them and you keep an eye so they don't screw things too much while yourself taking care of the big picture.
Probably best way is at that point to start own business. More fun and reward.
Re: Ask HN: Going from CTO to Developer?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
the only problem with this is that as an IC when your manager is really doing poorly and not grasping their job, its _really_ hard not to say 'dude wtf, that's just not right'. that can go pretty badly. so you really have to work hard to stay extra constructive and support them as if you were _their_ manager, without the authority that usually implies. and that's a heavy burden as an IC
As an eng manager, I always make it super clear (many times) when new engineers onboard they're always welcome to say "this doesn't make sense" ask for more details. Sometimes (maybe even often) they're right. I also enourage them to "assume good intent" from other devs and managers. Fundamentally no one manager knows everyone and no one engineer is right about everything.
Yea, the problem is that bad managers likely end up being bad because they don't have this humility.