Joshua Hoffman - Should the CTO be Coding? - Codemotion Amsterdam 2019
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What is the job of a CTO and how does it change as a startup grows in size and scale? As a CTO, where should you spend your focus? As an engineer aspiring to be a CTO, what skills should you pursue? In this inspiring and personal talk, I describe my journey from early Red Hat engineer to CTO at Bloomon. I will share my view on what it means to be a CTO, and ultimately answer the question: Should the CTO be coding?
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Joshua Hoffman - Should the CTO be Coding? - Codemotion Amsterdam 2019
- 1. Should The CTO Be Coding? Joshua Hoffman (Independent) Amsterdam | April 2-3, 2019
- 2. Set the radio to channel 1!
- 4. Who am I?
- 5. Experience Highlights • Red Hat • Tumblr • SoundCloud • LeaseWeb
- 6. Who is this talk for?
- 7. This Talk Is For • Engineers thinking about a career change to management • New Startup CTOs (especially with rapidly growing teams) • Anyone who wonders what a startup CTO does
- 8. Should the CTO be coding?
- 9. What is a CTO?
- 10. “Executive-level position focusing on scientific and technological issues.”
- 11. “The CTO develops policies and procedures and uses technology to enhance products and services.”
- 12. “The CTO examines the short and long term needs of an organization, and utilizes capital to make investments designed to help the organization reach its objectives.”
- 13. What is a Startup CTO?
- 15. “It’s a fuzzy sort of role that doesn’t really fit in a box.”
- 16. “It totally depends on the startup.”
- 17. Some Types of Startup CTO • A Technical Founder • Solo Engineer • Lead Engineer of a small team • Head of Product Team • Head of Engineering Team
- 18. It totally depends on the startup.
- 20. The CTO Spectrum Startup———————ScaleUp—————————BigCorp 1-4 15-30 50-100 500+
- 21. The CTO Spectrum Startup———————ScaleUp—————————BigCorp 1-4 15-30 50-100 500+
- 22. How did I get here?
- 23. Why be a Technology Leader?
- 24. “Taking the lobotomy” Photo by https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bz3rk Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
- 26. My First Management Experience Photo by https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bidgee Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia
- 28. What does a Startup CTO do?
- 29. Stuff a Startup CTO Typically Does • Recruiting • Coaching and Mentoring • Help define Career Paths • Help define Team Structure • Influence Engineering Culture • Maintain a Vision of The Future • Coding?
- 30. My Top Startup CTO Priorities • Deliver top quality products and/or services • Be a great place to be an engineer
- 31. Recruiting
- 32. –Amsterdam Economic Board Report: Fighting The Odds “Developer and data scientist vacancies are constantly open and it usually takes… more than 12 weeks to fill these vacancies.”
- 33. –Amsterdam Economic Board Report: Fighting The Odds “The demand for Junior IT talents has doubled in the past year, reaching 1 candidate per 26 vacancies, with developers still being the most sought-after candidates…”
- 35. Integrity
- 37. “What advice would you give someone who is considering a career change to software engineering?”
- 38. “What is one book every software engineer should read and why?”
- 39. “What advice would you have for a junior engineer on their first day of work?”
- 40. “In your opinion, what is the difference between a Junior and Senior software engineer?”
- 41. “What would you like to learn from us and what can you teach us?”
- 43. Coaching Advice or assistance that is immediately actionable.
- 44. Coaching • Immediate feedback • No relationship required • Practical • Incremental focus
- 45. Mentoring A trusting relationship, built over time, typically in which a more experienced person advises a less experienced person.
- 46. Mentoring • Thoughtful advice • A long term relationship • More questions than answers • Long term focus
- 47. Career Growth
- 49. Engineer Level 1 • Influence: self • Communicates clearly and effectively • Actively involved in learning new skills • Asks for help when stuck
- 50. Engineer Level 2 • Influence: team • Regularly facilitates team communication • Actively involved in learning and sharing new skills • Helps others when asked • Can solve small problems independently
- 51. Engineer Level 6 • Influence: industry • Regularly writes research papers and/or conference talks • Actively involved in coaching and/or mentoring other team members • Contributes to engineer onboarding program • Can lead a large project involving multiple teams
- 53. Leadership Example How to change the behavior of 100+ engineers
- 54. Uptime 96% Photo by https://www.flickr.com/photos/dirrksv Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic
- 55. Outages occur primarily during working hours
- 56. Outages mostly effect new/active projects
- 58. –John Alspaw “All outages are the result of someone doing their job.”
- 59. 7 Requirements To Complete Any Task
- 60. Awareness
- 61. Tools
- 63. Capacity
- 64. Standard
- 66. Measurement
- 67. Motivation
- 68. 7 Requirements To Complete Any Task 1. Awareness 2. Tools 3. Skills / Knowledge 4. Capacity 5. Standard / Definition of Done 6. Measurement 7. Motivation
- 70. Prepare a service for production
- 72. Conduct a post mortem investigation
- 73. Uptime 99.9% Photo by https://www.flickr.com/photos/dirrksv Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic
- 74. Uptime Academy 1. Prepare a service for production 2. Respond to an incident 3. Conduct a post mortem investigation
- 75. Team Structure
- 76. Team interdependency is a direct result of architectural choices
- 77. Tech Debt
- 79. Way of Working
- 80. Vision of The Future
- 81. Should the CTO be coding?
- 82. The CTO should SOMETIMES be coding.
- 84. –Lisa Cash Hanson “Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished.”
- 86. Seven Secrets Of The Successful Startup CTO
- 89. Tech Over Taste
- 90. Elevate Others
- 91. Make Decisions
- 92. Plan For Tech Debt
- 93. Build and Maintain Your Network
- 94. Seven Secrets of The Successful Startup CTO 1. Never Stop Learning 2. Never Stop Teaching 3. Tech Over Taste 4. Elevate Others 5. Make Decisions 6. Plan For Tech Debt 7. Build and Maintain Your Network