What does the CTO do in a startup? | LANARS (2023)

Michel Krieger of Instagram, Werner Hans Peter Vogels of Amazon and David Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rail... What do they all have in common? That's right, they are remarkable CTOs who have managed to change the world with their groundbreaking technical ideas.

In 2020, the success of any business is based on advanced technologies. They are used to reduce operating costs, optimize processes, analyze market trends and forecast profits. The role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) is to help the company maintain its competitive edge and remain technologically viable.

The technical director's tasks are part of the technical side of the company. Depending on the company's size, marketing goals, and business area, the CTO may have different responsibilities compared to other C-level executives (eg, CEO or CFO).

What does the CTO do?

So who is a CTO (Chief Technology Officer or Head of Engineering)?

The position is considered one of the more nebulous C-level roles, as the CTO's responsibilities depend on a number of factors. region of origin, business processing style, number of internal and external employees and more. There is also no guarantee of salary. In 2020, the average salary for a CTO position worldwide is159.920 $Per year. However, blue chip companies such as IBM and Boston Dynamics do offerannual salary of about $200,000;.

You will also be hard pressed to find a common CTO job description for startups. The one thing you can be sure of is that a Chief Technology Officer's primary job is to enable a company to achieve its financial and marketing goals using an innovative technology approach.

They can be employed for two main purposes: to take care of internal business processes or to develop innovative products. At the same time, the CTO is the face of the technical department. They can represent their companies at conferences, fairs and other events that strengthen the company's image.

Below are the most typical CTO roles and responsibilities:

Platform selection and technical design

It may surprise you, but the CTO will be involved (directly or indirectly) in all technical projects. The CTO is responsible for maintaining the strategic focus of the project and is responsible for implementing an idea. In small startups, the founder serves as the CTO, and in large companies, the CTO leads multiple development teams, including teams that serve the company's technical needs.

A CTO can be referred to as a product manager whose primary purpose is to lead a technical team and make business-critical technical decisions, such as technical design planning, product architecture layout, and development platform selection.

A CTO's job description can also include some practical details: If a technology team doesn't have the knowledge or resources to do a task, then it's up to the CTO to find a solution. No wonder they need to acquire a wide range of technical and 'soft' skills.

CTO as a service is another approach gaining traction in 2020. Like performing technical tasks, technical oversight and management are outsourced to save project budget costs.

MVP and DevOps issues

An MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a product with only the basic features created to test marketing hypotheses and analyze real user feedback. There is a huge difference in the roles and responsibilities of the Chief Technology Officer in a small company and a large company when it comes to MVP development.

While the CTO of a multinational company is at management levels far removed from day-to-day engineering, the CTO of a small company must perform technical tasks related to the first product iteration. Backing up the technical process also falls under the CTO, although they have a large budget and may hire team members to perform tasks related to the MVP.

As a rule, it is impossible to immediately hire all the necessary specialists, which means that the CTO must regularly fill the gaps with their skills and time.

As you can see, the CTO's responsibilities are a bit unclear. DevOps engineering (development and operations) is also a CTO's battleground. They must build the technical side of the product from scratch, including features, server interactions, scripts, development roadmaps, and SSHs.

Engineer hunting and team development management

Startup CTO's responsibilities include hiring IT experts, data scientists and engineers. In 2020, the task is thought to become more difficult for startups, as the labor market tightens, digital companies continue to grow and need more employees. Technical experts prefer to specialize in niche areas, while startups need universal soldiers.

Another role of the Chief Technology Officer is to recruit a team (with or without the help of HR managers) and then execute or oversee the onboarding process for selected candidates.

In larger companies, a CTO job description may include organizing training activities for the technical department, training support and team supervision. That is why event management and coaching experience, as well as a broad professional base of contacts, is a clear asset on a CTO's CV.

Cyber ​​security

What does the CTO do besides managing the technical department? Cyber ​​security is another issue they are responsible for. Vulnerabilities may exist in the company's databases, websites or other digital tools used by the team. Products developed by the Company may also require security algorithms to keep user data private and encrypted.

The CTO is responsible for developing security procedures, developing algorithms, performing emergency audits and more. Other engineers must work according to the safety rules set by the CTO.

QA and product test

There is another more obvious difference between startup CTO job descriptions and corporate CTO engagements. Startups rarely have a separate QA department, which means product testing must be shared between developers and other team members. It is the technical manager's responsibility to decide who is responsible for the troubleshooting process. And when a technical error is found, it is usually passed on to the CTO, who then decides how to fix it. Practical work may also include writing instructions to correct typos.

In mid-sized companies, the CTO should develop a system to test upcoming updates and tools to track progress. Given that the CTO is someone somewhere between technology and the other business areas, most questions about quality management and technology budgets are usually directed to him.

Roadmap for growth and innovation

What does a technical manager do? Simply put, a CTO thinks about the future, maps it, and then executes the roadmap. In the discovery phase of the project, the CTO creates a roadmap for development taking into account business goals and strategies. The CTO works with various aspects of a digital product: development, UX, security, budgets, operational processes and team coordination.

In addition to implementing the MVP, the CTO is responsible for planning the next product release and technical updates. Typically, they perform fiscal roles in rebuilding MVPs, considering user feedback, working with data scientists, and filling resource gaps. Such an expert should be familiar with the security of data processing and storage.

How CTO responsibilities change as the company grows

As you noted, CTO duties should be flexible, even within a company. The larger the company, the more layers of management there are between a chief engineer and the actual execution of technical tasks.

But what is the primary responsibility of the CTO? The General Technical Manager takes care of the company's commercial goals with the help of a technical team. In a sense, a person in this position monitors the future and shapes it in a positive technical way. The CTO plans product development, estimates budgets, leads the team, develops the product and establishes work processes when reviewing product updates.

If a small startup CTO works well, the company can grow quickly and the role of the CTO will change significantly. What they must be prepared for at the various stages of the company's development, read here:

• Stage before sowing
  without technical experts other than the CTO

  Here we are at the pre-seed stage, where we are talking about startups trying to launch their first product. In such circumstances, the CTO is a practical engineer who must be ready to create the architecture of the digital product without the help of third parties and remains the key expert for its implementation. Data security, quality management and implementation are also their responsibilities.

  What does a Chief Technical Officer do outside of day-to-day programming tasks? In the initial stages, the head of the engineering department validates the technical complexity of the product idea and proposes technical approaches to its realization.

• To begin
  5-10 specialists in the technical department

  The CTO's role includes the selection and recruitment of software engineers, their onboarding, training and management.

  In the start-up phase (as we wrote above), the engineering manager evaluates the business tasks and ideas and comes up with a technical stack and budget proposal. They also list the experts needed to develop the project within deadlines and perform immediate business tasks.

  The CTO works in a team as an experienced developer and helps colleagues solve bottlenecks.

  After developing an MVP, the CTO focuses on improving the product. The idea is to design new features, scale teams to meet increasing needs for technical product support, and develop a scalable, optimized product infrastructure to increase business efficiency. The CTO is still responsible for these tasks as the role shifts to a hybrid of technology visionary, HR specialist and team leader rather than a highly skilled developer.
• Development (consolidation) phase.
  50-100 specialists in the technical department

  In the case of a startup integration phase, the Chief Technical Officer's duties include overseeing various development teams, monitoring progress, designing and implementing workflow principles, and managing security issues across the enterprise. As usual, mid-sized companies also outsource a number of product management tasks to the CTO.

  Overall management of the software product vision is an important task for the CTO in relation to the department's core tasks. However, specific tasks such as coding or QA may be performed by other team members or subgroups.

  The Engineering Manager also defines the architecture of the app and other digital products and tracks the latest technical updates to implement leading edge new approaches across the business. The CTO is the primary product architect and system administrator.

• Expansion phase
  more than 100 experts in the technical department

  A startup CTO job description related to the expansion phase of an established startup will specify the ability to lead large or multiple departments, advanced technology implementation at the enterprise level, experience in company representation (attending conferences and other professional events), management of training sessions, and much more.

  (Video) How to become a Chief Technical Officer (CTO).

  Here, the CTO is a senior manager who is several management levels away from performing practical tasks. The ability to communicate, make precise, forward-looking decisions, monitor the progress of teams and departments, plan the development of new technological competitive advantages and be the face of technology - this is what a perfect CTO will look like.

  CTO jobs in large companies are influenced by the overall corporate style and values.

  A CTO participates in every phase of the project implementation. Read our article for more informationApplication development process: from idea to application maintenance.

What skills does a tech startup CTO need?

It is believed that the most important characteristic of a CTO's roles and responsibilities is that he has experience in both operations management and software development. One is not more important than the other. At the same time, a CTO must be flexible enough to adapt to the needs of a growing startup.

As you can see in the section above, the larger the company, the more soft skills and management experience become valuable to a CTO. Here we would like to list some of the essential skills required for the position.

Negotiation skills

A CTO must lead the development department, approve new candidates to work on the project and encourage them to study new technologies and implement new approaches. At the same time, the CTO interacts with technology workers, HR departments, other C-level executives, and (sometimes) customers.

Creativity and problem solving skills

The CTO is the problem solver. If a problem occurs, the CTO is the first to be notified. On the one hand, the engineering manager is expected to develop and market automation solutions for business processes (debug, task execution, technical support). On the other hand, they are also specialists who work with technical issues without external support.

Sense of leadership and guidance

The Chief Technology Officer's roles and responsibilities include "selling" the company on entirely new strategic developments enabled by new technologies. The ability to inspire people to achieve more, to convince them that your vision is realistic and has certain benefits - all these skills are signs of a good CTO. The engineering manager must also know how to "home grow", acquire or outsource talent.

Continuous self-education

CTOs in medium and small companies are usually the most skilled technical experts on a team. This rule changes when we are talking about a large company, where the CTO has more management-related tasks and fewer engineering-related tasks.

However, both options have something in common. The CTO is the best technical visionary in a company. To stay busy, they need to study new ways of working, discover technologies and feel comfortable in a high-level professional environment.

Advanced technical skills

Creating digital product architecture, developing and testing MVPs and APIs, managing enterprise technology systems, DevOps skills - all these things can be found when reading a CTO job description at various companies. These skills are necessary for your business depending on its size and technical capabilities.

Think strategically

CTO leads and installs technology stack. They choose a development approach, a workflow philosophy and plan or manage project budgets together with the relevant project manager.

The CTO also has tasks at the company level: they define the company's technical strategy and the development body. That is why it is so important for a CTO to be able to see the whole picture at different levels – project, department and company.

conclusion

As you can see, the responsibilities of a CTO can hardly be defined in a few lines. The dilemma is that the engineering manager is a position that straddles the line between technical execution and operations management.

So what does a CTO do? The person in this role provides technical leadership across all aspects of the business, balancing the needs of employees, users (or customers) and stakeholders. Depending on the characteristics of the company, a CTO's duties will vary. Developing technical strategies, security vulnerabilities, mentoring team members, quality control, discovering and implementing new technical trends, researching feedback, launching MVP and finding effective solutions to persistent technical problems are just the most common examples.

To find out the criteria for you to choose a CTO for your company, you need to assess your company's current and future technical needs. If you're planning to apply for a CTO position in any company, you'll need to craft a resume that emphasizes technical expertise and business process management skills.