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Interesting thread, and I feel it applies to me too... I just recently left my role as a VP Engineering in a 20 people startup. I think there is some disparity here as I am UK based and titles here are a bit different... When I started, there were already a few people working on it, but because of an office move, nobody stayed. In a way, I am engineer #1, just with some code to maintain already. I had experience as a lead engineer already, but my job here was much tougher, I had to change my role every 6 months, from only coding to only devops, hiring, managing, doing all tech strategy choices, doing resource allocation, doing management meetings, etc... I was eager to improve as a manager, but I still loved coding. It was very hard to hear that the company was hiring a CTO and leave me no authority. Now that person is full-time. I tried to be very clear about it, I am aware of my strengths and weaknesses. I also fully understand that a founder needs to think about what's best for the business and not just people's carreers. I also made it clear I was there to learn, but the reality is that I never felt I was given a chance. I stayed there a few months to get some learning from the new CTO, vest some more options and then I left. I left because the situation was toxic for me, with a mixture of resentment and miscommunication from their side. I personally think there's not much you can do in those cases... just start again. Now onto the next adventure... |