Great insight!
I come from a non-startup background but my experience is different, yet the same. I've been a CTO of an established medium-size business for about 12 years and came on-board with the background of a senior developer, like you.
Our IT team is small because IT is not our core product. We are a manufacturing company, and the role of IT is to support manufacturing, through internal IT, network support, DevOps, and internal software products.
I find that I've been a hands-on CTO in the same way as you were for a long time. I wish you published your post sooner :) Your insight #2 hits very close - My biggest problem was for a longest time, an inability to let go of system or infrastructure, especially the one that I built, once I hired a capable team member. Also, the feeling that I need to know as much if nor more about each and every system my team works on so that I can be their technical resource, got in the way. Took me a while to realize, that a "bonus feature" of a CTO, not a hard requirement. The main job of a CTO is to provide vision & strategy, project management, support, resources, and organizational help to the team. Functional expertise in 1-2 fields is necessary, but it can't get in the way, of the actual job.
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Great insight!
I come from a non-startup background but my experience is different, yet the same. I've been a CTO of an established medium-size business for about 12 years and came on-board with the background of a senior developer, like you.
Our IT team is small because IT is not our core product. We are a manufacturing company, and the role of IT is to support manufacturing, through internal IT, network support, DevOps, and internal software products.
I find that I've been a hands-on CTO in the same way as you were for a long time. I wish you published your post sooner :) Your insight #2 hits very close - My biggest problem was for a longest time, an inability to let go of system or infrastructure, especially the one that I built, once I hired a capable team member. Also, the feeling that I need to know as much if nor more about each and every system my team works on so that I can be their technical resource, got in the way. Took me a while to realize, that a "bonus feature" of a CTO, not a hard requirement. The main job of a CTO is to provide vision & strategy, project management, support, resources, and organizational help to the team. Functional expertise in 1-2 fields is necessary, but it can't get in the way, of the actual job.