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…