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Why I code as a CTO

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Re: Why I code as a CTO

#31

Post by cjblomqvist »

willio58 wrote: post #10

> I currently manage no direct reports and ship a lot of code. This is a wildly different status than almost all other people with this title. I’m glad this person still likes coding, and they seem to be great at it, but this role doesn’t match up to the title. This doesn’t really matter until he wants to switch jobs and realizes near zero CTO positions outside of this one company will require few meetings and zero m…

It's definitely not super uncommon where I'm at. CTOs, especially those that founded companies and are more technical doers than managers, that end up having responsibility for architecture and technical matters (tech lead deluxe), but no people (due to lack of people management and leadership skills/or desire for that kind of job - sometimes also product management skills at larger organizations).

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#32

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

I have a hard time taking someone with the title of “CTO” seriously if they have no reports and have time to code instead of being concerned with strategy.

I’ve had a few “opportunities” to be a “CTO” that were really no more than a glorified, underpaid senior developer with the promise of “equity” that would probably be meaningless

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#33

Post by dnw »

tptacek wrote: post #18
rpdillon wrote: post #8

Possibly unpopular, but this is an interesting topic, so I'll post my counterpoint. The question is: what are you not doing that is in the list of CTO responsibilities because you're coding? One of the reasons stated why you do this is "because you enjoy it", and on the list of reasons you need to do it is there are only a handful of people in the org that can ship new product surface area. That's...concerning. That…

Again, implies there is such a thing as a "list of CTO responsibilities". Companies can decide to give their CTO x or y portfolio, but by the time a company reaches the point where titles matter, it's hard to think of an intrinsically "CTO" responsibility that isn't covered by a VP/E or VP/PM. The one thing I can think of is "organization-wide architecture oversight", which is a pretty toxic role to assign. In orgs w…

Exactly. Role and title are amorphous and depends on the industry, stage of the company, etc.

Look at this CEO who codes: https://github.com/lattner :-) (He was fund raising in July, August)

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#34

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

willio58 wrote: post #10

> I currently manage no direct reports and ship a lot of code. This is a wildly different status than almost all other people with this title. I’m glad this person still likes coding, and they seem to be great at it, but this role doesn’t match up to the title. This doesn’t really matter until he wants to switch jobs and realizes near zero CTO positions outside of this one company will require few meetings and zero m…

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.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#36

Post by dijit »

tomnipotent wrote: post #27
kjgkjhfkjf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's very common to see a VP of Engineering managing the day-to-day operations while the CTO acts in a capacity like this.

I’ve seen that too, but then the VP of Engineering tends to report to the CTO, and not to- say, the CEO directly.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#37

Post by aaronblohowiak »

tptacek wrote: post #14
orliesaurus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really? like who?

Both in my own personal direct experience and in 15 years of consulting, primarily for tech startups, the modal CTO I encountered had in reality a product manager role with a special title that was helpful in important pre-sales meetings --- and they did not tend to be the de facto VP/PM.

what's the most effective model you've seen?

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#38

Post by noir_lord »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #32

I have a hard time taking someone with the title of “CTO” seriously if they have no reports and have time to code instead of being concerned with strategy. I’ve had a few “opportunities” to be a “CTO” that were really no more than a glorified, underpaid senior developer with the promise of “equity” that would probably be meaningless

It’s mostly because tech titles have no meaning without context (not specifically a tech thing either but we seem to do it more than most).

One place I was a senior dev running two teams of 8-9 devs (as both a line manager and a day to day manager plus mentoring), another I was a “Head of Software Engineering”, there where only 9 devs in the business, did get a nice pay bump with the ridiculous title though so that was nice.

The senior managing two teams thing came about because there was one senior per team and when the pandemic hit the manufacturing dev teams senior just upped and quit, I took over temporarily and then the pandemic lasted longer than anyone expected, it was a lead role even with one team and frankly at least a couple on each team should have been seniors on ability and experience but it was a weird org that way.

Re: Why I code as a CTO

#39

Post by hdjrudni »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #32

I have a hard time taking someone with the title of “CTO” seriously if they have no reports and have time to code instead of being concerned with strategy. I’ve had a few “opportunities” to be a “CTO” that were really no more than a glorified, underpaid senior developer with the promise of “equity” that would probably be meaningless

I'm a CTO that codes. I have zero reports.

We also have zero employees and relatively little revenue :-)

I think my role would indeed have to shift if we were to employ people and I don't like it, but I think you're not wrong.

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