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Why I code as a CTO

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Re: Why I code as a CTO

#161

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #94
mobeigi wrote: post #80

I appreciated the sentiment but I do wonder how on earth a CTO has enough time to write one line of code, let along several thousands. Even before reaching the C-suite roles, higher ups tend to be in meetings all day, back to back. In the short amount of non-meeting time they find, they typically have to do other admin related things or information sharing. I guess that CTO uses weekends or works super long hours whi…

While I think CTOs should take steps back from pushing to production systems because there's a lot of I dotting and T crossing that needs to happen with production systems that CTOs don't reasonably have time for, if a CTO wasn't writing experiments and building test systems to determine technical direction, or at least getting their hands dirty with said systems produced by their top principles, I wouldn't trust the…

The last time I worked for a product company was 2020. I was the second technical hire by a then new CTO of a growing company started by a two non technical brothers who hired an outside consulting company to do all of the work.

When the company found product market fit, they hired the CTO to bring the technology leadership in house. Early on he would do experimental POC work that he passed on to me to make it a working system as I was swamped doing my own architectural herding cats work as the company was growing.

But as the company grew he had to deal with more of the business side of the things. He still set the broad outline of priorities. But he gave me mostly free reign of determining how and I would just give him a brief high level of overview of my decisions. He did what a CTO was supposed to to do - grew the capabilities of his team.

I’ve been working full time for consulting departments/companies since mid 2020. My goal on any project I’m on with more junior people is to development them. I purposefully give them ambiguous technical requirements with broad guardrails so they have the autonomy to learn and grow and then help them when needed and I put them in front of the customer early on to I present their “workstream”.

From a hands on keyboard side, I let them pick what they want to work on first and I take the left overs.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#162

Post by noleary »

Lio wrote: post #135
dbbk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why are you the CTO!! Dude just wants to be a staff engineer

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

It's not that uncommon to keep the "CTO" title and not be the primary manager of the engineering organization. There are all kinds of things you can do with the org chart. If I recall correctly, Clickhouse works this way.

The company's cofounders comprise three people [1]:

* Aaron, a sales-oriented CEO from Elastic and Salesforce

* Alexey, the original Clickhouse developer, as CTO

* Yury, an experienced engineering executive from Google/Netflix as "President"

An excerpt from the launch announcement [2]:

> While negotiations were still ongoing, Katz decided they needed a third co-founder. “I kept thinking, if I could get a third co-founder to run product and engineering, and if I could find someone with the same level of experience building distributed systems on open-source that I have on go-to-market, it could be a really compelling combination,” Katz says.

---

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[1] https://clickhouse.com/company/our-story

[2] https://www.indexventures.com/perspectives/the-fast-and-the-...

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#163

Post by fooster »

prerok wrote: post #96
CuriouslyC wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're at a very small company, CTOs set technical vision, choose high level tooling strategy and outline engineering culture in broad strokes, but the nitty gritty of process will be from an engineering director or other role below the CTO. The CTO will probably provide feedback if needed, but they're not in the weeds and won't be able to see problems unless they're raised.

You are correct, my post was more for the situation where the CTO is also the engineering director but in larger orgs that is not usually so. I do think, however, that the coding CTO is not the way to go about to change the process. If it's too cumbersome, the CTO should talk with engineering director to find a way to make it less so, not just bypass the process.

Surely there is room for both. Most people don't found companies because they want to sit around on their ass. They're typically driven and do'ers. If things are not working as they want, and folks are not being responsive enough... they'll do it themselves and that is ok. After all THEY founded the company.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#164

Post by gdsdfe »

Well the only thing this post proves is that it's not because people call you CTO that you actually are one. While I do think CTOs should keep a pulse on code quality, process and dev experience, I don't think this is the way to do it.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#165

Post by fooster »

xrd wrote: post #131

I stopped reading when he said "I have no direct reports" in the first paragraph. If you are the CTO and have no direct reports, you are pretending to be a CTO because that is not what a CTO does. (Actually, I did read more, but with contempt stuck in my eyes...) AI coding tools are great, and the biggest problem they create is that inexperienced people think they can now make technical contributions AND management.…

There are lots of different types of CTO. Who are you to say which is right and which is wrong?

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#166

Post by BenFranklin100 »

People are dunking on this guy, but as a founder I can say that if you’re a CTO at an early to early-mid stage company, you better be getting your hands dirty with your tech base, both the hardware and software.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#167

Post by whstl »

prerok wrote: post #84
dilyevsky wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's something you're willing to share out loud? Your company's technical process (which you're fully in control of, Mr. CTO) is so cumbersome that it seriously hinders your ability to execute This is exactly what someone who can't be easily unseated should be doing at a company - demonstrate to middle management that the process they've constructed is whack and take away excuses for not delivering. CEO or someon…

Trouble is, I don't think they'll just get it and then set about to changing the processes. Besides, the process doesn't come from the middle management, it originates from the top, usually the CTO.

Exactly. Why change a process when you can be a superstar by ignoring it?

Fuck the customers, fuck the employees, fuck the investors. My ego is more important than any of this.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#168

Post by libraryofbabel »

dbbk wrote: post #129
sa-code wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t particularly enjoy building orgs and figuring out people stuff. Engineering management involves navigating interpersonal dynamics, performance reviews, and organizational design. These are crucial functions, but they’re not where my strengths lie. This bit got me. It's a direct quote from the linked post for those who haven't read it

Then why are you the CTO!! Dude just wants to be a staff engineer

He mentions he has nobody reporting to him. That sounds like he’s really a staff engineer with a vanity CTO title, plus a lot of sway in strategic decision making.

It’s not a guaranteed recipe for disaster, but it depends critically on his relationship with whoever actually manages the engineering org. If they don’t pull in the same direction, things go south very quickly and you end up with a little civil war.

Either way it’s a red flag and I wouldn’t work there. Another red flag is that he wrote this blog post at all. Given how clearly negative the reaction to it was going to be, it’s a strong signal he doesn’t really think things through and has a ego wrapped up in his “coding” prowess and ability to circumvent process. People mention Woz as an example of a technical co-founder in a non-management role, but he is a humble guy and wouldn’t brag like this.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#169

Post by eitally »

sa-code wrote: post #115
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…

> I don’t particularly enjoy building orgs and figuring out people stuff. Engineering management involves navigating interpersonal dynamics, performance reviews, and organizational design. These are crucial functions, but they’re not where my strengths lie. This bit got me. It's a direct quote from the linked post for those who haven't read it

This can work, imho, IFF the organization has both a CTO and CIO (or someone else tasked with managing the org). I've seen lots of places where the CTO is purely the technical visionary/advisor/final decision maker, and doesn't directly manage the technical organization.

This scenario is far more common outside of the tech industry, where you usually have a CIO running the IT cost center, and a CTO making decisions about technology adoption strategy.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#170

Post by eitally »

doctorleff wrote: post #160
SJMG wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I recall James Goodnight of SAS coding while being a CEO. As per https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2014/05/12/an-intervi... , he still programs from time to time but doesn't have a specific part in development. In looking at the articles to refresh my memory, it is clear he is one of the good CEO's

I don't think that's the model we should be looking at here. I'd add Stephen Wolfram to the very short list of similar technical CEOs.
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