Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 228 posts

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#41

Post by unoti »

Learning is painful, and it's tempting to just go back to your comfort zone. You dont really learn much in your comfort zone, and learning often feels a bit uncomfortable. Check out the Ideas behind "growth mindset" for more about this [1].

You mentioned the idea of management being about cleaning up crap and dealing with people instead of writing code. A few thoughts on that. There is a lot of people and management work involved in making code pay off for an organization at scale. Code by itself doesn't offer any value. It has to be in production, it has to be used by the customers, it has to be something that adds value for the customers. And it has to be managed in a way that the code is delivered before the competition gets a chance to sink you. Also code doesn't write itself, teams of people do, and those teams need to be built and maintained and recruited and taught. Making all of those things happen involves people relationships and soft skills. Your job is to make those things happen smoothly, guide and grow the engineering teams, prevent the fires, and establish the relationships that make that all happen smoothly and scalably.

It's a different set of skills from writing code, but it can be learned if you apply yourself to it and recognize the value it'll provide to your organization if you do.

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing...

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#42

Post by ruffrey »

I work for a company and the CTO submits PRs for two projects, and does some QA testing, and helps guide my team's R&D software. It is a medium sided company. For him it is a chance to lead the future of the company while still writing code and he embraces it fully, albeit he is very busy, but you can tell he gets energized by the way he plays the role. This would not be possible without the right company culture. However as CTO you are probably the best suited person in the company to shift culture toward this, if you wanted.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#43

Post by WhitneyLand »

lwhalen wrote: post #32

What I'm about to say may be considered harsh, but I promise I don't mean it to be. Quit. Just leave. Go back to coding. It's obvious you don't enjoy management, there's no shame in admitting that. Rather than inflict your misery on the rest of the team, get back to your wheelhouse where you can be happy, your team can be happy, and ultimately your company (current or future) can be happy. I have worked in a job wher…

Here's the problem with that reasoning. As OP implies she has enjoyed leading/managing within her own companies. Before my company was acquired it was thrilling to perform these duties even though it was more grueling. So it's not necessarily a matter of not being cut out for that kind of work.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#44

Post by arviewer »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #34

Great question and some useful advice. What online forum/community is the best match for this type of question? Maybe it's too niche, but it would be nice have one.

LinkedIn, with a fake profile if you want to stay anonymous. Stack Exchange is a good place, but find the right sub. Then Reddit. Enough places to find advice.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#46

Post by ebbv »

I think you're finding exactly what it seems you're finding; the CTO role is not for you (as it isn't for me either.) It is exactly what you're experiencing; dealing with bullshit, trying to get people to do things, get people to find common ground, etc.

If you're not enjoying it you should go back to being a lead developer. You may make less money but you'll be happier.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#49

Post by jf22 »

amelius wrote: post #18
jpendry wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP not enjoying the CTO role doesn't mean he/she should waste company resources for their own amusement. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

Read carefully: I said only rewrite if the code structure is bad. If the code structure is good, then re-architecting can amount to restructuring only the top-level parts. It can give OP a better feel for how the code is designed, and give them more opportunity to change things in a more structured way in the long term by repeating the process (rather than just fighting fires every time).

Code structure provides very little business value.

Ten year old battle tested spaghetti is more valuable than any benefits a complete re-write would provide.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#50

Post by sputr »

The main problem I'm seeing with this kind of topics is this notion that "management" and "coding etc." are on the same vertical. That as an end result of a successful career as a professional is to move into management.

Well, that's just bonkers.

I used to be a coder. Now I'm in management and I've learned, the hard way, that management is it's own specialty ... and that the best managers don't see them self's as "above" their team, but the "team coordination & external communication" specialist of the team. The only reason for the extra pay is the expectation that a manager take the brunt of the "external" crap (aka. having responsibility for the team) so that the rest of the team don't have to and can keep working. Which means that just as you need knowledge and experience to be a good coder, you need knowledge and experience to be a good manager. I find the notion of going from "best in your field" back to being "the green guy" at the height of your career as utterly crazy.

But that's just me.

Post reply on HN