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Why I code as a CTO

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Re: Why I code as a CTO

#241

Post by ludwik »

ghaff wrote: post #235
acron0 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can the Chief Technical Officer not be the one chiefly responsible for technology decisions?

Because, title notwithstanding, they may not be the person solely responsible for technical decisions especially at the detailed (or macro) level.

There is a big leap between them not being the sole person responsible for technical decisions and them not even necessarily having a seat at the table for technology direction. The former is understandable. Later - quite surprising.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#243

Post by yieldcrv »

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…

> foregoing required legal

depending on the legal requirement it may not have been foregoed but instead became legal because an executive did it

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#244

Post by hooverd »

kittikitti wrote: post #74
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?

The backlash is really telling of how bad things have gotten when a Chief Technology Officer coding in a software startup is disqualifying.

Maybe Staff Engineer would be a better title here. He doesn't seem to be doing much in the way of ya know, managing or running things.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#245

Post by PerilousD »

Sorry - you lost me at manage with NO direct reports. You, maybe, manage the coffee orders for the board of directors? I don't know if they exist anymore, but IBM, Microsoft, HP used to call you folks "Fellows" not CTO's and a nice position if you can get it but get over yourself.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#246

Post by richardlblair »

eitally wrote: post #169
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

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 a…

The technical capacity of a CTO matters less then the CTOs ability to stay in their lane (for a lack of a better term).

I once worked for a company with a self taught CTO (and not the good kind). They had a number of star players, and this CTO would frequently lash out at them. All because he was getting in the way of them doing their jobs, doing work he wasn't qualified to do, trying forcing them to clean up after him, and then yelling at them for it. It was insanely toxic. I only lasted a few months. It was so bad I back channelled patches and project briefs to people he liked to get them approved.

Had this CTO remained people, project and product focused everything would have been fine.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#247

Post by zbentley »

Man, we have got to bring the “chief engineer” title back into more companies.

CTO-titled people who self admittedly aren’t interested in leading groups of people set a terrible example for smaller outfits, and a confusing and tempting example for eng leadership at larger ones.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#248

Post by sokoloff »

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…

In that story, we don’t know why legal would need to be involved. Maybe it’s for a good and essential reason or maybe it’s for a sand-in-the-gears reason.

Maybe the CTO’s company uses GPLv3 or AGPL software and the customer’s legal department vomits all over AGPL and demands extensive review for GPLv3 for their developers. Or maybe they’re worried about later finger-pointing and support issues. Or ensuring the company is running on unmodified, mainline sources.

Those would all be reasons why the CTO’s company could ship without involving customer legal teams without it being a red flag to me.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#249

Post by whiplash451 »

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 built and shipped a working version in a day.

If I were an engineer working under a CTO doing this, I’d find it extremely demotivating.

Why, as a CTO, are you not setting things up so that I can do it instead?

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#250

Post by sokoloff »

yieldcrv wrote: post #243
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…

> foregoing required legal depending on the legal requirement it may not have been foregoed but instead became legal because an executive did it

I took that a step farther and got written into our SOX compliance processes explicit “deviate from normal processes as much as required when this short list of people declare an emergency”, shamelessly cribbed from aviation law.

Slightly more details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39174707

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