What does a CTO actually do?
'It depends'
A big part of being able to answer what a fractional Chief Technical Officer (CTO) does first requires defining what a ‘normal’ CTO does. I use ‘normal’ in quotes because the CTO role is a strange beast, and like many things in the world of engineering, the answer is: ‘it depends’.
First, a caveat: this is from my experience and the experience of other CTOs I meet and interact with. In that sense, it skews much more towards the startup side of things - I’m not claiming to have much experience with what a Fortune 500 Company CTO does.
It’s also framed by thinking and views shared over in the Rands Leadership Slack and Jonathan Stark’s Ditcherville communities. I want to give credit to these forums as they’re excellent for the niches they aim to serve1 and to highlight that this isn’t purely original thought.
With all that being said, let’s get into it: what does a CTO actually do?
We can break it down into eight broad categories:
1. Setting technical strategy and vision
2. Product development: ensuring the right thing is getting built, the right way.
3. Forging and leading the team(s) through hiring, management and mentorship
4. Infrastructure and operations: CI/CD pipelines, smooth deployments, scalable architecture.
5. Business <-> Engineering translator: being the go-between for the technical and non-technical parts of the business. Translating business needs into engineering costs and vice versa.
6. Compliance and risk: ensuring the company adheres to relevant legislation and regulations (e.g. GDPR) and mitigates risks such as downtime.
7. Customer engagement and support: ensuring bugs are flagged, triaged and addressed effectively, and incorporating these into longer term product roadmaps.
8. Hands-on coding: mainly relevant to early-stage startups.
This list is far from comprehensive, but I believe it covers most of the ground. If there’s any crucial ones you think I’ve missed, please let me know in the replies or comments.
Tomorrow, I’ll share how I use this to think about fractional engagements.
Rands Leadership Slack: Engineering leaders.
Jonathan Stark: freelancers, consultants and other independent professionals.
If either of these apply to you, check them out!