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

A CTO should be technical

blog.southparkcommons.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 367 posts

Re: A CTO should be technical

#271

Post by samhuk »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #43
dijit wrote: post #23

I just became a CTO. So, let me bear my thoughts. Since July of this year I've been CTO for a small games company, I've worked in this industry before in a more specialised role but this is much broader scope. I've gone from being responsible for 1 person to 10 which will likely become 50 by the end of next year. I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I feel like I will let my reports down. I'm terrified because a lot…

I've reported directly to good CTOs and really bad ones. The shitty ones: - Either never built trust or broke trust. - Were impulsive and reactionary. - Didn't rely on the expertise and skills of their reports as much as they told them what to do because they already knew everything. Didn't ask questions. Gave orders. - Literally used the words, "because I said so". - Believed that they were the only one doing any re…

Adding to that list, and somewhat related to your first point: Never built anything technical of any quality.

A coach that never played can't teach.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#272

Post by uvesten »

citizenpaul wrote: post #46
dijit wrote: post #23

I just became a CTO. So, let me bear my thoughts. Since July of this year I've been CTO for a small games company, I've worked in this industry before in a more specialised role but this is much broader scope. I've gone from being responsible for 1 person to 10 which will likely become 50 by the end of next year. I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I feel like I will let my reports down. I'm terrified because a lot…

I was a CTO once. Transparency is not your job. You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors". If you don't they will start getting anxiety or looking for new jobs instead of pressing on. This could actually be the difference between what makes things fail or succeed. You're job is not to be transparent or honest. Its to make sure everyone stays…

I had a CTO like you once.

Totally destroyed morale, made the best people leave, and created a toxic work environment where there was no trust in management at all.

If that’s your goal, good work I guess.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#273

Post by helsinkiandrew »

There's "can write decent C++" technical and "being able to choose between Sybase and mongodb" technical - the latter is probably more appropriate for a CTO. It depends a lot on the product, the size of the company and the technology being used.

If a person who isn't coding all the time can pass your coding interview its too easy. A CTO should have been able to pass it in the past and possibly pass it with a little revision and practice, but for most CTOs coding ability isn't that relevant.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#274

Post by ravenstine »

tinco wrote: post #252
arnvald wrote: post #249

> So let me put it plainly: the CTO/VPE/Engineering Director candidate should pass your coding interview. In fact, they should excel. People who work full-time as developers spend hundreds of hours practicing leetcode and hackerrank so that they can pass the interview, but a CTO who's 5 levels above and hasn't logged to Github for 3 years should excel at it? Come on. I agree with the premise of the article, CTO shoul…

Developers spend hundreds of hours practicing leetcode and hackerrank? Are they actually good coders? And that's required to pass an interview? I feel so out of touch. I haven't interviewed very many candidates, just a couple dozen maybe, but I've never heard anyone mentioning leetcode or hackerrank. If they'd admitted they'd admitted they spent that much time on there, I'd be seriously questioning why they didn't sp…

Though I much prefer Leetcode to waterboarding (whoops I meant *whiteboarding), but I know more than one 10x developer who has failed at Leetcode/Hackerrank type exercises. Any system will have false negatives, and at least Leetcode is more fair than whiteboarding, but I wager that Leetcode will be gamed if it hasn't been already. Coding is being seen less as an intellectually stimulating career and more as a gold mine to be prospected by career transitioners and those who can't or won't get an education. Enough people will eventually figure out that all they have to do is memorize jargon, brute force their way through enough Leetcode, and fill out hundreds of applications to get a highly paid job. The Leetcode approach simply isn't sustainable for that reason. If we face a recession, you'll see tons more people who can Leetcode but are terrible programmers.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#275

Post by ravenstine »

mianos wrote: post #269
jon-wood wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leetcode and Hackerrank I think, if they're used anywhere, are very much a Silicon Valley kind of thing. I've certainly never been asked to go near them when interviewing for startup jobs in the UK, and never used them when hiring myself. They feel very much like the sort of thing you use in an environment where you've got way more qualified candidates than you have open positions, so you're optimising for screening…

I think it may be a policy for some larger firms, even if there is little available talent in the local market. Here in Sydney there are next to no C++ experienced developers (I am hiring), yet some firms insist agencies make candidates do leetcode tests even before someone actually from the firm will even talk to them.

If they're gonna make you do Leetcode anyway, I actually would want to do it as early as possible. An initial phone screening would be good, but as much as I don't like Leetcode, it's less exhausting than multiple rounds of interviews before getting a challenge that you mess up on. Fail fast, fail early, as they say.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#276

Post by ravenstine »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #273

There's "can write decent C++" technical and "being able to choose between Sybase and mongodb" technical - the latter is probably more appropriate for a CTO. It depends a lot on the product, the size of the company and the technology being used. If a person who isn't coding all the time can pass your coding interview its too easy. A CTO should have been able to pass it in the past and possibly pass it with a little r…

The good CTO: "Sybase is more expensive than MongoDB but provides better replication. Any thoughts?"

The pointy-haired CTO: "I read that most sites are using the PHP these days. Why aren't we using that? We should get started adding the PHP to our project. MongoDB go burrrr"

Re: A CTO should be technical

#277

Post by LASR »

Forgive me, but almost always "X should be Y" is not ideal.

X should be great at X. All other things matter less. Now if you figured out what X needs to do, that's only half of it. You also have to excel at it.

I don't buy some of the specific examples in the post. Passing/excelling at coding interviews? Come on. That's not what CTOs are for. I wouldn't want my CTO to waste time on these things, because if they did, they're not pulling their weight at the things they should do.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#278

Post by ambicapter »

samhuk wrote: post #271
givemeethekeys wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've reported directly to good CTOs and really bad ones. The shitty ones: - Either never built trust or broke trust. - Were impulsive and reactionary. - Didn't rely on the expertise and skills of their reports as much as they told them what to do because they already knew everything. Didn't ask questions. Gave orders. - Literally used the words, "because I said so". - Believed that they were the only one doing any re…

Adding to that list, and somewhat related to your first point: Never built anything technical of any quality. A coach that never played can't teach.

Hard disagree. A good coach only needs to see the players on the field, notice the things that wins game, and figure out the way to motivate their players. Don't need to have played the game, though it helps. I'm thinking of one of the best coaches in the world, who played the sport at an unimpressive level as a teen...but at a young age he watched his father work as an assistant coach. That's where he learned his skills.

As well, the requirement for "must hit X bar of quality", where X is some arbitrarily high level, is nonsensical. If they're so good at building quality products...then why aren't they doing that in the first place. Necessarily, your best builders should be builders, and your best managers...should be managers.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#279

Post by matwood »

citizenpaul wrote: post #46
dijit wrote: post #23

I just became a CTO. So, let me bear my thoughts. Since July of this year I've been CTO for a small games company, I've worked in this industry before in a more specialised role but this is much broader scope. I've gone from being responsible for 1 person to 10 which will likely become 50 by the end of next year. I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I feel like I will let my reports down. I'm terrified because a lot…

I was a CTO once. Transparency is not your job. You're job is to keep telling your reports that everything is on track no matter what everything else is just "rumors". If you don't they will start getting anxiety or looking for new jobs instead of pressing on. This could actually be the difference between what makes things fail or succeed. You're job is not to be transparent or honest. Its to make sure everyone stays…

> This will 100% require lying or being non-transparent at some point.

I've been CTO/equity partner/division director/tech lead/IC/etc... and this is terrible advice. The one thing you need as a leader is trust - your people need to trust you and you need to trust them. Treat people like the adults they are, tell them what's happening to the best of your ability, and people will work their asses off to accomplish the goal.

Re: A CTO should be technical

#280

Post by marcinzm »

nordsieck wrote: post #62
scarface74 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had two jobs where I reported directly to the CTO - the first as Dev lead with people management responsibilities and the second as the de facto “cloud architect” that was responsible for the “application modernization” initiatives. My second CTO was very technical and up to date the first wasn’t. The only difference between the two day to day was with the second one, I could use terms without defining them firs…

> My second CTO was very technical an up to date the first wasn’t. The only difference between the two day to day was with the second one , I could use terms without defining them first. They both deferred to my technical judgement and I worked with the understanding of how to align my initiatives with the company’s. > I work with CxOs all the time in consulting now. I have no problem getting my ideas through CxOs or…

>But a technical CTO can stand up to reports that want to go down an obviously bad road, whereas a non-technical CTO would have as much defense as I would at jiffy lube when the tech asks me if I want my fluids flushed. It kind of sounds like a scam, but I really don't know.

The non-technical CTOs "defense" is having found which reports they can trust and support to make the correct tradeoffs. Then they do that. More broadly if your reports aren't competent or trusted enough to make the right decisions then find new reports.

The job of the CTO isn't to argue some stupid architectural point with people for hours. It's also not to blindly overrule them. Their job is to hire people that know more than them and can be trusted. Then it's to setup the processes within which those people can thrive.

In fact the problem with technical CTOs is that they can rely too much on their own technical knowledge versus fixing the damn organization. It's basically a bunch of band aids being put on a gushing wound.

Post reply on HN