In 2017, I found myself stepping into the shoes of a CTO for the first time. I joined a small startup as a senior developer, and before I knew it, I was
This is a bit of a narrow view of a very vague term. Having worked with many different sizes of organisations i can say that the responsibilities of whomever is labelled CTO are completely arbitrary. The only thing you can establish is that they are the person accountable for the technology decisions.
Sometimes that’s a legacy developer, sometimes that’s the first sys-admin.
Sometimes it’s the VP of engineering.
Sometimes that’s the person that maintains the best relationships with software vendors.
Sometimes it’s the person that was hired externally to explain the tech to the CEO and let’s them make informed executive decisions.
Sometimes it’s just a public figure used to promote the org and maybe do DevRel.
Sometimes it’s the Architect that designed the ecosystem.
Sometimes it’s the ancient programmer that has kidnapped the entire codebase so that no-one else can sanely work on it.
Sometimes it’s a six sigma type that setup the ticketing system, PRs and the release process.
At any size, the CTO is whatever the org needs him to be at that point.
This is a bit of a narrow view of a very vague term. Having worked with many different sizes of organisations i can say that the responsibilities of whomever is labelled CTO are completely arbitrary. The only thing you can establish is that they are the person accountable for the technology decisions.
Sometimes that’s a legacy developer, sometimes that’s the first sys-admin.
Sometimes it’s the VP of engineering.
Sometimes that’s the person that maintains the best relationships with software vendors.
Sometimes it’s the person that was hired externally to explain the tech to the CEO and let’s them make informed executive decisions.
Sometimes it’s just a public figure used to promote the org and maybe do DevRel.
Sometimes it’s the Architect that designed the ecosystem.
Sometimes it’s the ancient programmer that has kidnapped the entire codebase so that no-one else can sanely work on it.
Sometimes it’s a six sigma type that setup the ticketing system, PRs and the release process.
At any size, the CTO is whatever the org needs him to be at that point.