Congratulations. You are the CTO
Your success as a technical leader for many years has resulted in you being the CTO. Maybe it is your own company. Maybe you are at a startup. Or made it as the CTO of an enterprise. Congratulations! Get ready to start over, because what got you here will not get you where you want to be.
This blog is a collection of framework, mental models, technology choices, process & metrics and above all, people oriented thinking that has worked for me (and I will discuss some that did not).
This is of course not exclusive to people with “CTO” in their title. It applies equally to any leader who has to make decisions in their roles that impact teams. However, there are specific ways of thinking about organization, technology and process that a CTO sets the pattern on for the organization. This blog will specifically cover those.. and then dive into examples of how it applies to organizations at different scales.
This blog has my learnings over many years of being a tech leader, a manager, a Director of Engineering, a Fellow and finally a CTO. My thinking has been molded by several exceptional leaders + CTO’s I had the privilege of working with. It opened my eyes to the complexities they have to deal with. I had to learn other lessons the hard way, by stepping into the role of a CTO.
Some CTO roles are purely technical: Others have a people management side also. This blog is slanted more towards the latter, though I have been in both roles.
Meta
“When the bird and the book disagree, believe the bird” — James Audubon
Context is king. What is stated in this blog — or anywhere else — is unlikely to be applicable to you as is. People come to decisions and frameworks based on their life experiences. And your life experience is different, so it is likely that your mental models and your solve is going to be different. So take every advice given to you with a grain of salt and think about how it applies to you. The best characterization I have see on this is from Paul Buchheit:
Advice = Over-generalization + Limited Life Experiences
While I have plenty of opinions and advice here, you need to find your own path. Every statement you read needs to be evaluated against the realities of your situation and then a decision made about its relevance.
