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Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

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Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#61

Post by lkrubner »

If you've been CTO for 8 years, there is a good chance that it's time for you to delegate more of the technical work to some team leads, while you focus on the wider needs of the company. Depending on how large the company is, your main task right now might be to better integrate the work of the tech team with the work of the marketing team, or inventory team, or content team. I've been writing about this issue a lot lately, see:

"Should top managers focus on their peers or on those who they lead?"

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/should-top-managers-focus-o...

Many newly promoted managers stay focused on the work they used to do, but fail to give enough attention to the other parts of the business, with which they need to learn about and integrate with.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#62

Post by necovek »

bgroat wrote: post #56

Is it possible that you're not making the "right" moves because you're the CTO? Leadership is hard and it's hard because you're making bayesian calculations on suboptimal choices. Almost by definition. Say a Jr. dev has a problem that they can't solve. They kick it to an intermediate. The intermediate can't solve it so they kick it up to a senior. The senior can see a couple of solutions, but want's to run it past th…

If you are in an environment like this, you need to empower your engineers to make those choices: it will be more efficient, they'll feel better about the compromises they make themselves, they'll learn more from what happens, and you'll reduce the load on other people, like those seniors, architects and the CTO.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#63

Post by globalise83 »

The truth is you aren't a developer any more, you are a CTO. You are responsible for making key technology decisions on behalf of your business, and for building a team of people under you who can successfully execute your technical vision. The way to get out of your funk is to let go of your previous existence as a developer and to embrace the very weighty challenges of your new role.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#64

Post by jmann99999 »

cwitty88 wrote: post #12
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

CTO and developer separate into distinct roles as a company grows. How big is this company? Is it a small company with few developers where you hold the CTO title because you're a founding developer or the most senior developer? If so, you might be missing the reassurance that came from your previous life where you had a manager to check your work, peers to review it, and feedback from people who didn't report to you…

The company is growing in all facets. We added 17 engineers this year when we previously had a total team of like 10. You hit the nail on the head though, I got the role because I was the first engineer and employee at the company. In no way am I a great CTO, just lucky timing. I'm actually stepping down as CTO and becoming a developer again because I am not a good manager, that I know for sure. I think I need to be…

You likely know what is best for you, but let me offer the counter argument. Your company's dev resources are growing. You are questioning yourself as a developer. You probably know more about your company's stack than anyone. You are CTO.

I don't know what you want for your future, but many of us have transitioned from dev roles to management. If you are going to be an engineer long-term, then stepping down from CTO may make sense. However, if in the next 5-10 years you want to become "management" then you are going to have to learn how to manage people. You are going to develop less. Your team should be better at developing than you are.

If you eventually want to manage, you will have to learn the skills. So why not focus on getting better at CTO now? You'll be 5-10 years ahead of where you'd otherwise be. CTO roles don't come around every day.

Just my two cents.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#65

Post by optymizer »

How are you the CTO and a developer? If you're coding features as the CTO your company must be really small so it doesn't really matter if the code isn't 'perfect'.

If the company is big enough where people have the time to call you out on shitty code and think they can do better - awesome! Let them code it, and you can focus on technical direction. Tell them what to do. Delegate. Let them write the code - it's what you're paying them for.

You can put your developer hat on at home and write code that automates the garage door at your new mansion.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#67

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Unfortunately, you may need to let go of your tech work, or shunt it over to "nights and weekends."

I was a manager for 25 years, and one thing that I learned, was to never put myself into the critical path. I could do tech projects, but they needed to be "nice to have on the side" projects.

Management requires that we work on interrupt. We can't have that sweet "fugue," that makes us productive developers.

What I did, was work on a lot of open-source stuff, on the side. I didn't have deadlines, and it allowed me to keep my "tech chops" up.

Since leaving that job, I tossed the management stuff into the skip, and have concentrated 100% on tech work. I love it.

I'm a damn good engineer. I get a hell of a lot done, at awesome quality levels, in very little time, but I also don't particularly care whether or not anyone co-signs my work.

Also, I'm not a jargonaut. Lots of folks like to sneer at people like me, because we suck at Buzzword Bingo.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#70

Post by zerkten »

cwitty88 wrote: post #12
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

CTO and developer separate into distinct roles as a company grows. How big is this company? Is it a small company with few developers where you hold the CTO title because you're a founding developer or the most senior developer? If so, you might be missing the reassurance that came from your previous life where you had a manager to check your work, peers to review it, and feedback from people who didn't report to you…

The company is growing in all facets. We added 17 engineers this year when we previously had a total team of like 10. You hit the nail on the head though, I got the role because I was the first engineer and employee at the company. In no way am I a great CTO, just lucky timing. I'm actually stepping down as CTO and becoming a developer again because I am not a good manager, that I know for sure. I think I need to be…

That is a courageous choice as others have said. You are ultimately doing the right thing for yourself and others. There is possibly an opportunity in the transition if you are staying with the company to set yourself up with some dev work that will let you recover. Depending on circumstances, a passive handover puts you at risk of landing in an awkward spot.
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