Everyone wants to be a CTO but most will be disappointed when they get there.

What many engineers imagine the CTO job is about:

✓ working on the coolest tech yourself and giving the parts you don't like to other engineers

✓ going deep into researching technology you like

✓ being the smartest person in the room with the highest technical prowess and accolades

✓ being the person everyone looks up to for (and holds!) all the technical answers

✓ seeing out in the world technology that they would like to use/see created.

What the CTO role is usually about:

✓ Translating business strategy into technical strategy

✓ Cost management and budget creation

✓ Bridging the gap between business and engineering by translating engineering performance into business terms

✓ Ensuring security of the product is not putting the company at risk

✓ Listening to the client voice and other company departments, and creating a technical product a big market of people want, at the right cost, speed and quality for the business stage and market forces

✓ Inspiring mastery from your engineers by communicating effectively a vision that they buy into and supporting these engineers to deliver that vision

✓ Making a business case for the resources needed for engineering to deliver the business strategy

✓ Scaling themselves through other people, and often letting those people work out the technical details that once were the greatest satisfaction in their job.

What did you imagine the CTO role was about before you became a CTO?

What was the CTO role really about when you started doing it?

#reEngineeringLeadership

#ceo #cto