Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what? • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by nekopa » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 9:51 PM UTC

nekopa wrote: post #62

If you are a hacker, then try to just hack the suckiness out of the job. Take a mental step back, and look at the business as a large computer, everyone's crap as bugs, fires as serious bugs and dealing with other managers as a high level architectural/resource allocation problem. Then get to hacking! Refactor the program (your role and tasks) until its running smoothly (i.e. you're happy) then start adding features.…

By the way, for others coming to this thread late, I'm off to bed, so if you don't hear from me in a few hours it's because I'm sleeping. But I will send out the files to anyone that's interested, I'm just on my mobile at the moment so I don't have the files at hand. But I'll send them out to anyone who requests them in about 5 hours or so :)

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

#212

Post by harel » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 10:15 PM UTC

I've been in the same position. Was first to join a couple of founders, built the first few iterations of the application, small group, great fun, lots of challenges, lots of code. As funding came, team grew I became the CTO officially. But then the fun stopped. Technical decisions which were meant to be mine were dropped on me by one of the founders despite my objections (most if not all proved to be mistakes). In the end I stepped down and we invented a new role where I'd be in charge of innovation. That worked well. The CTO who replaced me run away himself after a short while and after that we were CTO-less.

Thing is there are many forms to the CTO role and different people see that role in different eyes. To me the CTO is a technical leadership position. You are meant to decide the technical strategy of the business. Decisions from which servers to use, to what language to how things are done, architecture from the top down, etc. Someone mentioned about the VP of Eng. role which I can't agree more - That role is there to support you with the crap. That person needs to be more manager than tech. He is there to make sure your time is dedicated to the core of your position. Not everybody saw this roles as I did which is why I was happy to stand down than try to fight it. I was there from day 0 to acquisition about 7 years later.

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

#213

Post by vasilipupkin » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 10:20 PM UTC

DelaneyM wrote: post #203

vasilipupkin wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying Google has a lot of VPs without MBA and no product leadership experience, without any prior experience of having P&L responsibility, strictly engineering experience? Perhaps, but I am skeptical. I'd like to see the data on that.

If you restrict it to product VPs, it was true as recently as 2014. The set of Google VPs has a representative sample on LinkedIn. Prove me wrong.

All the VPs who came through engineering that I found did so after having been early employees at one of the top tech companies. I buy that. But if you are going to climb the ladder now, I doubt you can do it through engineering at Google

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

#214

Post by knighthacker » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 11:05 PM UTC

My advice is to realize that you are hired as a leader in the organization. Use your leadership to change what needs to change so that the company succeeds. An important factor for the success of the company (as long as you are still hired there) is that you are doing what you love doing and what helps the company, because it'll make a big impact. If you like writing code and write 2 lines of code, it'll raise the morale of the team and get them motivated to work more.

What I am trying to say is assume your leadership and do what you want to be done. If the company likes it, then great. It is a win-win situation. If not, then next steps are clear.

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

#215

Post by hkhall » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 2:47 AM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #177

nekopa wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why don't we, as an industry, talk to the Universities, and say that we really need a new program, let's say a TechMBA? (Or for marketing purposes, call it a TeMBA - that really rolls off the tongue :) I'd think that there would be some interest around this from the universities, and business is really crying out for this too. From the Uni viewpoint, it is another product they can leverage, whilst still using ther…

This already exists: http://www.ntnu.edu/studies/mtiot . It probably exists in the US too. The demand for them is crazy-high. Leadership roles in Norway are very rarely filled by hiring fresh graduates, but the consultancies lap them up. It's an integrated 5-year master. They do engineering stuff the first three years, specializing in the third, and then they do two years of economics/business/leadership. It's very s…

There is something similar in the US at Dartmouth (yes it has a slightly goofy name): http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/academics/graduate/innovati...

Basically they let you cross register with some Tuck Classes while doing research that is more self-directed than normal.

Source: I am in the program

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

#216

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 3:23 AM UTC

DelaneyM wrote: post #125

nekopa wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why don't we, as an industry, talk to the Universities, and say that we really need a new program, let's say a TechMBA? (Or for marketing purposes, call it a TeMBA - that really rolls off the tongue :) I'd think that there would be some interest around this from the universities, and business is really crying out for this too. From the Uni viewpoint, it is another product they can leverage, whilst still using ther…

This needs to be solved demand-side, not supply-side. If you graduated a class of TechMBAs right now they wouldn't have any jobs to use their new skills. Flip it around: if Google opened up a new role for "Active engineers with MBAs", and presumably a few others followed suit, a top school or two (GSB/HBS/CBS/etc) would create the curriculum & recruiting plan to fill it. (Most likely Google could do this together wit…

This is basically the APM program in Google. Google stopped hiring PMs without a technical background (either CS coursework, or professional experience as an engineer) in 2008, because they found that the PMs they did hire with no technical experience universally sucked.

They also have (had? it's been 2 years since I was there) an active rotation program between eng and PM roles, with the opportunity to transition permanently. A number of my friends did it; I'd seriously considered it, but my manager was willing to let me do PM-type roles without formally switching job titles.

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

#217

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 3:29 AM UTC

DelaneyM wrote: post #198

paulsutter wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and other well run companies have skilled technical people at all management levels.

I'd love to meet one, or see a job description for such a role.

When I was at Google my entire management chain had the title "software engineer" (except Alan Eustace, who officially had the title "VP of engineering" but had a hardware engineering background, and Larry Page, who had the official title of "CEO"). That was 6 levels up, including me. Amit Singhal (who was 3 levels above me and responsible for a department of 2000 people or so) was still titled "software engineer".

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

#218

Post by dj_doh » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 4:19 AM UTC

Thought provoking. I read it earlier today, dropping in to add my two cents. I've been toggling between roles that either fits into 'product manager' or 'product developer'. That included a short stint as a startup founder.

IMHO (and experience) an A1 CEO/product/sales/business-guy can't be an A1 CTO/tech lead/research-guy and vice-versa. My operating keyword in this argument is 'A1'. This is counterintuitive to our natural inclinations.

Edit: Typo

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

#219

Post by rorykoehler » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 4:51 AM UTC

DelaneyM wrote: post #152

rorykoehler wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always viewed tech as a tool to improve the other aspects of the organisation. What are you doing with tech if you are not improving either operations, marketing or finance?

It could also be your product.

In which case it's just one step removed. All products I have ever come across fix a pain point in one or more of the areas mentioned.

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

#220

Post by gspetr » Tue, Jun 14, 2016, 6:52 AM UTC

DelaneyM wrote: post #38

tl;dr: in your situation many people go off and get an MBA. Don't do that. There's a reason there's only one CTO in HBS' 60,000 person alumni database (I am she.) I was a very hands-on CTO for years after a decade of coding, and broadly enjoyed it. But as the teams I managed grew it became increasingly unfulfilling. When you're CTO, you're often excluded from business decisions which have a bigger impact on your team…

> Unfortunately, there's no real place in the world for a highly technical business leader.

There certainly is, but I'll concede there might not be in a random startup.

For a counterexample, John Carmack seems to have done well for himself as Oculus CTO, even coding interesting things by himself:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10273235