[phakding]

Well I don't even know what a cto does. I have been in many meetings with them, but besides making high level decisions and asking for status, I don't know what they do.

Besides I was born in poverty and needed lot of efforts to be able to socialize with people born upper middle class. I can only imagine what else I need to learn to socialize within upper echelons. I can't explain it to you fully.

Thanks for asking though, I never thought through this before.

[pandapower2]

>I don't know what they do.

In my experience all C level executives do a very good job of seeming like they know what they are doing. That seems to be a huge part of the job. Seeming like you know what you are doing, seeming like you know what is going to happen in the future (despite that being fundamentally unknowable) and being vaguely intimidating.

Beyond that they select from the set of possible projects that could be undertaken ie create a new product, overhaul some existing system, lay off a bunch of people etc etc. Having made that selection from the options put in front of them their reputation improves if the project goes well (or at least looks like it did). Their reputation takes a hit if the project goes badly.

They may have little or nothing to do with the project execution upon which their career rides. It seems like a bizarre job in that regard. Decide on a high level course of action then wait 6+ months to see if you will be considered a genius or an idiot. During that time your involvement is limited to periodically listening to status updates while looking stern.

[dasil003]

C-suite is about setting the vision and aligning teams and departments. It’s anything but choosing from presented choices and waiting months on end for results; to the contrary it is constant evaluation and communication to steer the ship as well as possible. You are right that projecting confidence is important, but that’s not the main job by a long shot.

[bryanrasmussen]

I agree that is what it looks like from the outside to people who have no experience at it, but I doubt that is what it looks like at all from the inside. Just as from the outside a programmer might look like a sweary toddler who keeps you from messing up his toys out of pique.

I may have told this anecdote before, if so here I repeat it:

There was a Friday meeting at a place I was consulting at, the C-level executives were outlining the way projects would run to the end of the year. It seemed in some ways less than optimal, they then in a rare bit of insight into their processes said 'I know this looks less than optimal but the reason why we are doing this is ---blah blah blah 3 sentences of finance technobabble'.

It was quite clear the suboptimal process had been chosen to maximize available moneys for projects due to accounting decisions and specific legal regulations. Although exactly how eluded me.

I was pretty sure that most of the people there understood as little on the matter as I did but everyone did that expression on their face to signify they did understand that people generally use with me when I describe how stemming/decompounding works and why this means we will have to take another way in structuring our data for the search engine.

But yes most of the time I would look at those people and say that they don't do anything.

[manigandham]

> making high level decisions and asking for status

That's it. Along with hiring the right talent which is the half of the job (and often invisible) so that the work actually gets done. High-level decisions can affect hundreds or thousands of people and many more customers, so fewer but more important decisions is the trade-off, then delegating the rest so that other workers can do what they do best.

This description seems minor but the larger the company, the harder it is to keep things on track for a long-term focused vision. Also people don't do things just because you tell them to and you'd be surprised at just how hard it is to keep people working towards a goal.

[vajrabum]

It might be a good thing the next time you have a meeting with a CTO to ask them what they do what their jobs is before or after the meeting. I asked a VP that question at biotech company I was consulting at 15 years or so ago and the answer was very revealing. It didn't make me a VP or even a manager but I have a much better perspective on that level of management then I did before.

[soalian]

Would you mind expanding a bit on your experience with that particular VP, more specifically what you got from his answer?

[briandear]

You need to believe in yourself first. It sounds like you have an inferiority complex. Most CTOs I know aren’t “upper echelon” anything — they just got great at their job and weren’t afraid to take risks (such as joining a tiny startup.) Plenty of non tech founders would love to have someone like you with your experience.

(I don’t mean to be disrespectful; just wanted to implore you to not fall for the self-imposed bigotry of low expectations.)

Just look on Angellist and you could probably find yourself a CTO or role — or one that could quickly lead to one. Just be excellent at your job; learn how to influence and be confident: you know more than most!

[cloverich]

As part of that journey you should also seek to understand if you actually _want_ that job, because it will likely be a lot different than you're current one, and possibly quite a bit different than you imagine. That makes a good conversation point to have with the CTO however: "I want to learn more about what a CTO does". But I wouldn't let your conception of your poverty block you. My parents both grew up poor and eventually ended up in executive positions (in completely different fields).