[tptacek]

I flinch whenever I see people talking about "being a CTO", because there's really no such thing. The title doesn't really mean anything. In startupland, three possible (and possibly overlapping) meanings of the title are:

1. The corporate officer title a founder that isn't the CEO gets because they're on the board, purely as recognition of their seniority ("why is this person on the board?" "because they're the CTO.")

2. The consolation prize a founder or early employee gets when the mature engineering organization takes away their commit privileges.

3. The fluffy title a founder or senior employee gets when they transition to a customer-facing role so that prospects are (ostensibly) impressed.

These are all situational and don't really describe a "role". Excepting case (1), I would be a little alarmed if a company I worked at asked me to assume a "CTO" role. Either way: having been a "CTO" says basically nothing at all about whether you're lateral to software developers.

Your question makes more sense if you consider the move from VP/Engineering to developer. Either way, you're completely fine from a signaling perspective, but you're especially OK if your title was "CTO" and not "VP/E". The last thing in the world you should want is a career trajectory defined by "CTO-hood". Yikes!

[adastra22]

CTO is an actual role with well defined responsibilities in most companies. I’m sorry the ones you worked at sucked.

[tptacek]

Yeah? What do you think that role is?

[adastra22]

CTO/VP Engineering have the same separation of tasks as CEO/COO.

The CTO is the chief engineer he or she sets technical direction for the company. VP of Engineering is the top manager for that division and executes the CEO’s vision using technical choices made by the CTO.

In many companies these are the same person, but not always. In my last startup they were separate people. The best chief engineer (CTO) isn’t always a good people person (VP).

Software companies that differentiate by some metric other than core technology might not need a CTO, which would explain your confusion if that’s your background.

[tptacek]

"The CTO is the chief engineer" is both false and somewhat circular. It's false because plenty of "CTOs" --- maybe most of them! --- work outside the engineering organization, and are more closely aligned with product management than software development (CTO is very often a customer-facing "role"). It's circular because it leaves open the question of what a "chief engineer" is.

I worry that a lot of HN "CTO discourse" is really wishcasting, about what an "if I was monarch of all the developers" role would be (and then about what it's like to aspire to such a role). No healthy engineering team has such a person!

[adastra22]

The chief engineer is the one who makes final engineering design decisions.

What industry are you in? In deep-tech / hardware the role of chief engineer is well understood. In biotech it is sometimes called chief scientist.

[tptacek]

Wow. I would run, not walk, away from any tech company that had this role.

Since you asked: I'm one of the principals at Fly.io. Before that, I was one of the founders of Latacora, which embeds directly inside of startups for years at a time running their security teams full time. Before that, I founded Matasano Security. Before that, I was a Product Manager at Arbor Networks, after being the lead developer on their DOS product for a couple years. I'll stop there (I'm older than the median HN commenter).

Later

For what it's worth, for companies literally chartered to do scientific exploration --- drug discovery chemistry, for example --- I completely buy that there is a real "Chief Scientist" role, though I can't claim to understand that role well enough to defend it. But that doesn't describe any software company anywhere. Regardless, "CTO" is something different.

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

Surprised to see such a cynical and negative comment from such a well known account. CTO at early stage startup is often the most important person in the company, technical delivery/execution, hiring, early decisions on which frameworks, integrations, helping with sales, etc.

[tptacek]

I could not disagree more strongly about the importance of a "CTO" in an early-stage startup. With few exceptions, you're talking about functions of engineering management. CTOs of established companies are almost as a rule not engineering managers.

[senorrib]

The obvious cynicism aside, what you said doesn’t really contradict point #1. All those responsibilities can be taken by any IC in pre-seed/seed startups (except the wrongly stated “most important person on the company”).

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

Sure, but then that IC, if executing correctly should just leave and found their own startup. And true, sales/building the right thing is often #1.

[tptacek]

This is like saying that every successful product manager should go found their own startup, which, come to think of it, fair enough.

[senorrib]

Agreed.

[varispeed]

Small company would typically call their lead developer a CTO. Though I've seen once this was actually backed up by giving the person real share of the company and a seat on the board.

[tptacek]

Why would a small company call their lead developer a CTO?

[MakeThemMoney]

Because titles are important to some, and can be used as an incentive to lure people in.

[tptacek]

I'd be interested in some examples of where this "recruiting talent by offering to call them 'CTO'" strategy --- which I know has happened! --- has worked out, and what the actual role description for those "CTO"'s was.

[bcaxis]

I've seen such title inflation work for people.

Recently watched a relatively young person parley a position at a small company with a VP title that resulted in a slot at a regionally well known organization as a director and then president of a much larger startup.

Over about 4 years he went from front line sales to running a sizeable company with the key step being the VP title at the small company that rocketed him up.

I also recall a former co-worker that was denied promotion and generally failing to progress in his career. He took a slot at a tiny company explicitly for the title. I think it was director. He managed to parlay that into very positive career moves.

Personally, I don't care as much about titles these days. I just don't want to work for places making terrible tech decisions and forcing me to work within that. I'm happiest making the decisions and really don't want to stop, whatever it's called.

[lulznews]

Extremely based and uniquely insightful comment. CTO is basically a bullshit job. At small companies it’s just an eng manager or lead eng. At BigCo’s it’s just some guy they pay a lot and trot out for occasional keynotes.