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Why I code as a CTO

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Re: Why I code as a CTO

#251

Post by whstl »

richardlblair wrote: post #246
eitally wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

> this CTO would frequently lash out at them [...] doing work he wasn't qualified to do, trying forcing them to clean up after him [...] and then yelling at them for it

Was that a Fintech in Germany, by any chance? :)

I once witnessed a meeting between a CTO and a Tech Lead. The CTO was attending from his laptop in an open office, and he was yelling in Russian for one hour straight at another Tech Lead because he wanted the tech lead to finish his work. It was a pathetic display, with the whole company watching and wondering what was going on.

Eventually he was "phased out" by having a few people promoted to VP of engineering who would deal directly with the CEO instead of him.

Last I heard he tried to rewrite the financial core in Golang by himself, but he failed since nobody wanted to work together with him and he doesn't really knew the language.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#252

Post by SJMG »

tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #188
SJMG wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wasn't Mitchell Hashimoto only a non-CxO for a handful of months between stepping down and selling the company?

I'm not that familiar with his employment history; you could be right. Either way, he'd still be an example. If you have longer term ones, I'm sure it would add to the discussion

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#253

Post by zkmon »

tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote: post #225
jenadine wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PR reviews for your commits may not be honest [...] True. That's already something I struggle being the most senior in my team. It is hard to find reviewer for my commits who dare to actually reject my code.

That sounds a bit odd. I am the most senior in my team and when I make mistakes, my peers reject it. If people on the team don't dare to reject code from other members on the team, then it sounds like your team has some serious issues.

In a practical, work-world of humans, the org hierarchies do matter and impact the way these humans interact with each other. Maybe not for bots.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#254

Post by submeta »

BoxFour wrote: post #209
submeta wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not really a good analogy. Tech is different. I am not saying you should sit down and write code. But in IT you know the difference between a tech lead who knows technology, who knows what works, for what reason. And the one that just demands results but knows nothing about the details of the technology. Has never gotten his hands on it.

> This is not really a good analogy. Tech is different. Why? Seriously: Give me a convincing reason why tech is different from every other field, where this happens regularly. > I am not saying you should sit down and write code. But that's the whole premise of this conversation. It's entirely possible to understand something deeply without doing the thing yourself. It's entirely possible for a CTO to deeply understa…

Because one is an intellectual activity, the other is not. You cannot expect the 60+ year old coach to run and train with the team members. But you can as a CTO try out technology, open the terminal, run a docker container to see the technology. Otherwise you are too far away from the things you try to orchestrate. Here the analogy of a master chef comes to mind. She doesn't have to work with her sous-chefs, but it helps to be able to still master the knife, make sushi or make a Crème brûlée, or even an omelette. All while mostly focusing on the big picture.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#255

Post by straydusk »

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…

You're not describing a CTO, then

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#256

Post by wavemode »

> Between org structure, roadmap incentives, and limited risk budget, few engineers can take months to pursue ambiguous bets.

> I can.

It's weird to hear a company executive say essentially "this work is important, but our company has too much bureaucracy and risk aversion for a regular IC to spend time working on this, so I just do it myself." Like, maybe that means you should actually be spending your time removing those roadblocks, instead?

It's no wonder why small companies innovate more than large companies. What is a wonder is, why many small companies intentionally make themselves more like large companies and lose their innovative spark as a result.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#258

Post by [deleted] »

habosa wrote: post #187

I’m not totally against CTOs who code (I like having management that I respect technically) but it sounds like this CTO is pretty clearly doing too much coding and not enough CTO-ing. Posts like these show why the founding engineer is the most underpaid person in Silicon Valley. This CTO probably has 30% of the company. There’s probably a founding engineer doing 90% of the same work for years (and likely doing the te…

[deleted]

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#259

Post by YZF »

acron0 wrote: post #232
ghaff wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you find confusing. Someone can have an advisory and essentially technology evangelist role without necessarily being the ultimate decision maker. (And, at a larger company, a variety of folks--including the board--will ultimately make final consequential decisions.)

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

I thought it's typically Chief Technology Officer

In most companies I've been a part off, including multiple >$1B tech companies, the CTO's focus is not on the engineering. That's the job of a VP Engineering or some similar position.

CTO (which will sometimes have a "CTO office") is to work besides the engineering on investigating new technologies and ideas that are beyond what the engineering organization would have otherwise done on the day to day. They are also an authority on all technology in the company but are not in the engineering "chain of command".

That said this is not universal, there are organizations where the CTO does lead the engineering organization. I think that's sub-optimal because there is always going to be tension between the day to day and the broader scope and those should be different roles.

In a startup, it is more common for a CTO to lead engineering because there is not yet enough to justify having both a VP Eng and a CTO and perhaps most of the work is around figuring out technologies. But as the company grows it makes sense to separate those functions.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#260

Post by johnjwang »

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…

(Author here): I hear what you’re saying, though I’ve never “crowed about regularly checking code in on Saturdays and Sundays” and I think that’s a false characterization of my article.

Do I love to code? For sure. Is it something I do on the weekends? Generally yes because it’s something incredibly fun for me, and it gives me a lot of energy. Now, is it an expectation I have of my team? No, it’s not because I want a sustainable pace for the team and I recognize not everyone has the same relationship with work or coding as I do.

And on the “circumventing process” bit — what I shared wasn’t an example of blowing past legal/security review recklessly. It was a case where I, as someone with full context, could quickly build something safe and unblock a customer, going through our normal code review and deploy process. I don’t expect anyone (myself included), to have any exceptions to this.

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