Lessons learned from becoming CTO of a small startup
Update 2021: I wrote this in 2018, a year after joining a startup to lead their development. Nowadays, I manage a digital agency and help early-stage startups kick-off their development.
I want to share with you my experience in moving to a CTO position. This post will mainly concern management on the technical side, CTOs, VP of Engineering, Heads of Departments, etc.
In every software engineer’s life comes a time when they need to decide if they want to pursue a career in engineering or switch to management. There are pros and cons to both of those choices, and it all depends on what your character is like, what you want out of life, and how well you can manage work-life balance.
I became CTO of a small company (< 40 Employees) almost a year ago, and that switch made me work harder than ever before; suddenly, the things I needed to do didn’t fit on a single to-do list, and as the weeks went by the list kept getting bigger. During that year, I finally managed to structure my work, and I would like to share a few things with you that I think are essential and would have made my life easier if I had known them back then.
First, you need to keep an eye on some points while transitioning from a developer position to a management position from the same team or just in the same company.
