The way to increase your impact as the CTO

How do you do your best work as the CTO?

It depends on the size and maturity of the company.

It’s a role that constantly evolves and challenges you.

At the start, the CTO is the founding engineer, working hands-on with a few mates on the MVP.

The company grows, the product matures, and the focus shifts from building the product to building the team that builds the product.

I’ve seen plenty of CTOs struggle to delegate their responsibilities and evolve into the strategic leaders the company needs them to be.

They love to code.

They love infrastructure.

And they love to be with their teams.

The problem is that this does not scale beyond a few engineers. When the CTO writes code and deployment scripts, the company has 80% of a senior engineer and 20% of a CTO. Maybe.

The problem goes deeper.

I’ve had startups try to recruit me, and the founders were looking for someone “very hands-on,” even though they already had 10+ engineers.

It’s seen as a badge of honor.

At the core, the issue is different. It’s easy to see code changes and label someone as “being productive.”

It’s much harder to gauge the impact of strategic work.

The role evolves beyond engineering management, as understood in a larger organization.

It’s not just about the tech team growing.

Other departments mature, too, and depend on the tech team to unblock them.

If the CTO is still writing code and fighting fires, what are they not doing?

Not figuring out how to hire, organize, and delegate the resources they have to achieve the business goals in front of the company.

If they focus on that rather than code, they could 10x—50x the impact they have.

You can’t be a 10x engineer, but you can be a 10x CTO.

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Have a great start to the week,

Taj