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Why I code as a CTO

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Re: Why I code as a CTO

#141

Post by BoxFour »

brabel wrote: post #125
matwood wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you think coding is not high leverage on a tech company. At the CTO level of a growing company it is one of the lower leverage things they can do. Setting technical direction, hiring the right people, and putting the right people in positions of power will all have much more impact than writing some code on the weekend.

You’re wrong man. These things you mentioned happen rarely, it’s not what you do day to day. If you don’t do some high value coding you have no clue how to steer a tech company at a technical level.

> it’s not what you do day to day.

I don't know about that. I was a "CTO" for a small (10-person) and a slightly larger (around 100-person) VC-backed startup. Hiring was always top of mind at both places. Not even "people management", just hiring alone. I'm not saying this universal, but when a company is expected to scale rapidly (as is often the case with venture-backed firms), managing people can easily consume your entire workday even at a relatively small size company.

Of course, I'm not saying that's everyone's experience. There are obviously lots of reasons that dynamic might be different: For example if you're not a VC-backed company, or a CTO who's a world-renowned technical expert in a particular field (nobody's bringing Ilya on board for his ability to hire).

But it's very, very easy for people management to be a day-to-day thing and I don't think it's a waste of time compared to direct contributions.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#142

Post by SJMG »

senorrib wrote: post #139
Lio wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. If he’s a technical founder though what other position would you hold?

Staff engineer. Founders don’t necessarily need to hold CXO titles to work in the startups they founded.

A few examples that spring to mind, Steve Wozniak and Mitchell Hashimoto

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#143

Post by icedchai »

kjgkjhfkjf wrote: post #26
tptacek wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that you think a CTO does? There isn't a standard answer to this question.

CTO is usually the exec responsible for the entire tech org. The CTO reports to the CEO, and the top managers and maybe a few ICs in the tech org report to the CTO.

I was CTO of a <20 person startup. I recruited the entire tech team, collaborated with the CEO to build the product backlog and spec things out, presented to investors, but also had at least 50% time to code. Not all “CTO” roles are the same. At a small company they better be hands on.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#144

Post by BoxFour »

Thorrez wrote: post #55
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With no directs, even “principal” would be a stretch in any company of note. If he spends that much time “coding”, that barely qualifies as a “senior” at large tech companies.

There are plenty of Principal Engineers (L8) at Google who have no reports. In fact, I think the majority have no reports.

Most of those engineers, outside of ones who have extremely specialized knowledge or skills, are essentially managing others still just without a direct reporting chain.

The commit log for most of these high-level engineers is extremely sparse. They're spending most of their time writing documents or influencing orgs, not writing code.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#146

Post by shortrounddev2 »

dilyevsky wrote: post #109
wiseowise wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to exercise your god given right to mog goons below you. Show everyone that system (that you’ve created) is shit and when some lowly SE thinks he’s above them all, you publicly flay him and make example for all that you’re the god emperor. Business value? The ego trip is a business value!

God forbid you'd actually have to do any real work when there's so many design, retro, and daily sync meetings to attend and so many jira issues to groom.

Ive worked on both ends of the spectrum and id prefer too much process to too little

With too little process, people release bugs that I then have to scramble to fix. The CEO who pushed to skip QA and unit testing and everything in the name of release never has to deal with the consequences of their impatience

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#147

Post by mritchie712 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #67

Man, if I'm trying to decide which company to work for, and I see a blog post from its CTO crowing about regularly checking in code on Saturdays and Sundays, I'd start backing slowly away. And when I got to the bit that said "AI has made me three times as productive," I'd turn and run. Your job at the top is, more than anything else, pushing down a healthy culture. That includes things like setting an example of not…

he's also casually trashing their engineering team... "I built it in a day" is suggesting no one else could have.

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with doing it (i.e. shipping a feature quickly that a customer needs), but writing a blog post about it is questionable.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#148

Post by [deleted] »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #67

Man, if I'm trying to decide which company to work for, and I see a blog post from its CTO crowing about regularly checking in code on Saturdays and Sundays, I'd start backing slowly away. And when I got to the bit that said "AI has made me three times as productive," I'd turn and run. Your job at the top is, more than anything else, pushing down a healthy culture. That includes things like setting an example of not…

[deleted]

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#149

Post by BoxFour »

submeta wrote: post #54

I have a question to the CTOs here, honestly asking: How can you have your team work on cutting edge technology without understanding the technology by getting your hands dirty, open your terminal, tinker with the technology, look into it, play with it, try to get a grasp of it. How?

I don't think this is a really convincing argument: There are plenty of leaders who haven't "done the job" in decades, and we don't question that. It's incredibly common in professional sports, for example.

Mike McCarthy hasn't played a down of American football in 40 years, and never played at a very high level. But we don't question his ability to get others to perform complex motions.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#150

Post by swaits »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #67

Man, if I'm trying to decide which company to work for, and I see a blog post from its CTO crowing about regularly checking in code on Saturdays and Sundays, I'd start backing slowly away. And when I got to the bit that said "AI has made me three times as productive," I'd turn and run. Your job at the top is, more than anything else, pushing down a healthy culture. That includes things like setting an example of not…

Don’t just back away slowly. Run for your life!

Prediction: this is the part of the AI boom that goes bust.

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