The Startup CTO, from Coder to C-Suite

What it takes to lead engineering as a startup scales from garage to a global company

One of the questions I somtimes get from startups founders is what the journey looks like in the future. I gues they think I am a crystal ball 😅

My response is to focus on today, as that is all you have control over. My follow up is that the journey is very context specific, so generalizing can be hard. Some startups are very engineering oriented because of the nature of the industry or solution, while others may be more product or go-to-market driven.

This means that the CTO journey can take many different paths. Some can be very hands-on and remain deeply focused on technology while others shift to being more strategic and business focused. Some are visionaries and others tacticians.

In observing and advising many startups though, I have noticed that many CTO’s do evolve in a similar way. If they are adaptable, can develop themselves as the startup scales, and remain at the startup, the journey progresses in a predictable way with core skills and responsibilities that CTO’s take on to enable the startup to grow.

So what does that journey look like? I asked my friend Peter Bell, CTO of Engineer Access, to share his thoughts in the latest Founders in the Cloud post. Peter is also the co-founder of Geeks Who Lead, the definitive global learning community for senior engineering leaders (join here)! He hosts the CTO Hour for O’Reilly and facilitates the executive summits at KubeCon. He ran engineering at General Assembly, created a remote first team of 50 for Flatiron School and taught Digital Literacy and Data Science for the MBA program at Columbia Business School. So in short, he knows what he is talking about.

Below is a brief summary of this excellent post (full post here):

The role of a startup CTO changes dramatically as the company grows. In the inception phase, the CTO should focus on product experimentation and validating assumptions by talking to potential customers, rather than just writing code. At the seed stage, the CTO acts as a player-coach, driving architecture, shipping features, and aligning the team through lightweight processes.

During the growth stage, after raising a Series A, the CTO needs to transition from running a team to building an organization. This involves hiring engineering managers, formalizing processes, and potentially bringing in an experienced VP of Engineering.

By the scale stage, after a Series C or beyond, the CTO's emphasis shifts to ensuring consistent and predictable operations, fostering innovation, attracting top talent, and developing future engineering leaders. The founding CTO may consider stepping back into a staff or external-facing role at this point, relying on experienced executives to manage the organization's day-to-day operations.

Throughout this journey, the CTO must continuously learn and grow as a leader, seeking advice and mentorship from peers at similar or more advanced stages.

If you want to read more, check out the original post “The Startup CTO’s Journey” on Founders in the Cloud site. We also write about the odd and funny pet peeves of VC’s and also share our upcoming travels and events.

Thanks for reading and please subscribe to Founders in the Cloud if you want to learn more about building, growing, and scaling startups!

Mark Birch