tech-company, director-duties, ctoWhen we started out as a CEO/CTO team, the division of labour was simple - the CEO dealt with investors, partners, raising money etc. and I worked on hacking away at our product, as well as demos, and generally dealt with technical stuff by myself.
Now we’re a team of 8, growing to 12. My job has radically changed, I’m overseeing projects, managing people’s work, and still coding.
I’m spending some time with the CEO later this week to properly spec out my job and responsibilities, almost to write up a ‘job description’ so it’s clear in my head what I’m supposed to be doing.
Does anyone have experience of how to define the role of CTO in a startup at the phase we are in now? It’s new territory for all of us, and some guidance on how to navigate the role now, and as we grow into the next phase of the company would be useful.
Once you’re at the stage where you have a product and a team looking after it, in my view the CTO’s job has three main elements.
First, you are the one whose job it is to look into the middle distance and set technology directions. What “middle distance” looks like depends on what kind of business you’re in - high-paced B2C has way shorter horizons than enterprise sales. But whatever that means, you’re the one working out where you need to be, and spotting where there are discontinuities from present trajectory.
Second, you own the trade-off between pushing ahead with the backlog and improving the system. Your main tool is the resourcing question - tactical questions (who works on what next month) and strategic ones (roles in the team).
Third, you are also the manager and a coder until the team grows to the point that you hand those responsibilities on.
Me and a friend worked very hard and interviewed a lot of people to try and define exactly what the CTO role is.
http://ctorole.com/
However, it doesn’t mean its the best practice for everyone. Take what you need from it.
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