Category: CTO Career

Mostafa Khattab is CTO at Wakecap Technologies in Dubai.

He has agreed to share his thoughts with CTO Academy about his experience of being an “An Accidental CTO” … aka someone who arrived in the CTO role ahead of schedule and is grappling with new challenges and very steep learning curve.

For those who missed Diary of an Accidental CTO, Part 1 you can start here but for the rest, please read on …

“Having introduced some context in Part 1 to my current role and the accelerated shift into my current CTO role, I want to use Part 2 to walk you through some of the technical mistakes I made during my own learning curve, how I would try to avoid doing them again in the future and maybe help someone else who lands in a similar situation …

After my sudden promotion in a fast growing technology startup, I was unsure about many aspects of the role. About what should I do, how I should do it, and also how I recognise whether what I was doing was correct, best practice etc. I felt at times like a rabbit in the headlights.

Re-Inventing The Wheel

People always says never build it from scratch, but when you are in charge of building something that will hopefully stay around for a long period of time, the idea of building your product from scratch allowing you to be in full control is an attractive one.

Unfortunately, people always say it because it’s largely true. Building something from scratch is not a good idea at all, unless you are building a core product that’s going to be executing better and quicker than anything else. How many of us can say that in an early stage start up?

My recommendation is definitely find something that’s already out in the market and straight off the shelf. Customise it for your needs, use it even if with some limitations and kick start from there. The world has shifted even in the last few years where you can always find quite robust kit off the shelf. Re-inventing the wheel is not good use of your limited time.

One more thing to point out here are the internal applications.

If you are about to build an internal application, don’t invest time on it, try to find other ready systems that give you an immediate application. Don’t invest time during the early days building an internal system and dashboard, when your focus must be on customer needs and validation.

Is it the right technology stack?

Choosing one technology stack for building the technology is one of the traps Startup CTOs can fall into, especially during early days with limited resources.

Usually a Startup has a core business and/or module that other stuff is built around. The issue I find is that engineers often use the same technology for building the core everywhere else, all over other products and features. This nominated technology stack might be the best for the core, but is it the best for everything else? You need to be certain of that, before jumping into one stack with both feet.

Let’s say you are a data aggregation startup, where your core business is about getting data from different sources and producing insights from this data for your customers. You and your team decide to use NodeJs to aggregate the data and save it to your data lake using nodejs.

Great, good choice!

Now your customers ask you to build a dashboard for them to access your data and ask for too many other features on the dashboard. Now you really need to think twice before proceeding with NodeJs. 

Using NodeJs for a complex dashboard may sound convenient but take care and avoiding reinventing that wheel again. It might be easier and faster using a framework like PHP Laravel and have everything ready with a framework that has most of the built-in features you need to build in your NodeJs dashboard.

Testing

With low budget and fast growth I fell into in the trap of losing the quality of the software. Testing is not only a position, but also a mindset, losing this mindset will bite you in the ass in the near future.

Testing is more important than any other part of your technology stack, this is probably my big learn from these recent experiences. Any other issue in the development process can be solved but a lack of testing and doing it late can come with a very high cost later.

Software Testing is particularly important during the early days, and most other times, because it saves money. It saves your system from malicious attacks that might seriously slow you down and potentially ruin your startup.

Testing guarantees better software quality and more satisfaction. Take care of it, and make it a high priority from day one.

Thank you for reading and I hope some of this resonates. Part 3 will look into leadership and some key learning points from my experiences.

Mostafa Khattab, July 2020

Mostafa Khattab is CTO at Wakecap Technologies in Dubai.

He has kindly agreed to blog for CTO Academy about his experience of being what we call an “An Accidental CTO” i.e. someone who arrived in the CTO role ahead of schedule and is grappling with new challenges and very steep learning curve.

Mostafa will be posting regularly with a birds eye view of what it feels like to be at the sharp end of a fast growing start up.In this series, I am going to write my experience of becoming ahead of schedule CTO.

“I wanted to start writing a blog about the challenges faced by young tech leaders who join early stage startups and as mentioned, suddenly become an accidental CTO.

From my perspective I struggled jumping directly from senior developer to CTO, especially during a time of growth where absolutely everything was running a full speed. The business, the tech challenges and the fundamental change in my role to become a technology leader.

These are my thoughts on what it looks like at the coal face. The types of challenge you might not anticipate in advance, well at least I didn’t see them all. Hope you enjoy.

Building Your Team

I have been working with teams for many years but the challenge now was very different. Rather than being part of the team, now I had to start building one. Figuring out the skills we need but working that out not on the basis of “like to have” but working within a tight budget actually, a very tight budget, this was about laser focus on what is the priority now. Everything else has to wait.

My dream of rapidly building an in-house high performing team and working on employee branding and cohesion, was very hard giving the budget constraints into account.

Best option for a tight budget is recruiting a remote team but that comes with its own challenges and often hidden management costs. Hiring a remote team brings with it different management challenges when trying to build an effective team. You need in particular in finding the right alignment and communication, when we don’t have the regular and direct human contact from my previous working experiences.

It’s always challenging to compare hiring a remote team or start building on-site team, the remote team fits more in the budget but the management is challenging, the on-site team is easier to manage but I had to sacrifice some skills and experience to get good enough junior engineers on-site.

From Team Player to Tech Leader

Of course I was (am) excited about being in a CTO role. Feels great and I love being able to impact directly on the company and the team we’re building. But I didn’t realise maybe as much as I should have that it’s good to have great technical skills and perform well on those terms with your startup, but watch out because the skill set is about to shift dramatically when stepping into that leadership role.

Instead of producing something, you have to inspire people and create an environment that enables them to produce that thing with better quality than yours. 

The main challenge I encountered was how to delegate, trust and get people accountable for what they are working on. You can’t sit behind your screen anymore (even though you are some days tempted to do that) but instead you need to start thinking differently, taking the initiative and leading the team. You need to expand awareness about yourself and also develop an understanding about your team members. Understand your own strengths and weaknesses but also build an ability that allows you to dive deeper into the skills and challenges for your employees.

Communication!

Communication is one of the key issues faced by tech gurus landing into technology leadership positions, a challenge magnified if working within a multi-culture team for the first time.

You need to clearly and effectively communicate with your team members, you need to cross the language and culture borders and become a good listener. Listening is not always an easy skill but it’s crucial to encourage your team to speak up and make them feel comfortable about being heard.

If the company formal language is not your (or their) mother tongue then you need to create even more safe space to invest time in listening to team members and making sure everyone is communicating effectively.

Stress

If you can’t handle the stress, don’t continue please!

The burdens of being a leader can be overwhelming. You need to understand how and where those stresses might be impacting you and your performance. Check for the root of stress and lead your team to handle stress, to not be afraid to ask for help and don’t over work which so often leads to burnout.

Agility

You need to setup the processes so that you can effectively handle the technology management. As an Accidental CTO you will almost certainly need to learn these new skills quickly so they help managing the often complex processes and systems of your company.

You need to start managing work through ticketing, have a full understanding of code repositories and branch strategy and don’t forget the Quality testing and control. Plan for the CI/CD, prepare well for on-boarding sessions to save time in the future, and understand how to report to the upper-level management.

So these were the main challenges I faced in my new role. Next blog post will look at some of the mistakes made”

Mostafa Khattab, July 2020

What is Professional Growth?

The definition of professional growth will be different things for different people but it certainly means more than certificates on the wall.

Performance Expert Bill Eckstrom “it’s the development or better use of talents and skills that lead to improved outcomes. This development can take place in many different places – on the job or [in] off-the-job environments. 

On the job can be the result of experiential learning, coaching relationships, classroom, etc. However, too often people view professional growth as something that is only on the job, but it is not. For example, one of our executive leaders became a certified yoga instructor, and we have all benefited from her growth. She is more calm under fire, she has taught us more patience, and she is a better overall coach”.

What is a Professional Growth Plan? 

There is the intentional and the unintentional plan.
One happens to you, the other is dictated by you.

The professional growth plan should start with understanding where you are now, where you want to go and how to get there.

It should be a mixture of the personal and the professional and to be most effective, it should start with the finish in mind.

A crucial first step is to understand your own career purpose, what drives you and motivates you and what role(s) do you aspire to achieve in the future. What career path will enable you to achieve your optimal working experience?

Once you have an understanding of what you want the future to look like, you can start to reverse engineer the steps required.

Without this self awareness your career can head off into various rabbits hole as you increase the potential of taking the wrong roles, at the wrong time and with the wrong people.

Some or all of that combination, will not make you a happy bunny.

If you’re not focused on that ultimate career road map then you also risk the possibility of missing the professional growth opportunities that emerge through your career and which can provide you with the stepping stones required for executing your life and career plan. 

Strategies For Professional Growth and Advancement?

• Long Term Goals: Understanding your long term purpose, timeline, ambition and breaking them down into small chunks of time. Create accessible short term targets, as you build towards achieving those lifetime goals in the long term. 

• Set Out Your Key Criteria: What does your optimal experience look like? What is a non-negotiable in terms of the lifestyle you want, the role that will stimulate you, the career you want to achieve? 
• Build Experience and Reputation: Much of our success in business is down to a concept called Know. Like. Trust.  Do people know, like and trust you? You need to manage your personal brand, like you would manage the corporate one. 
• Join Relevant Associations and Networks: Which ones can help you grow and burnish your market reputation? What are merely talking shops and which ones can bring real insight and value to your professional growth strategies? 
• Find Professional Training and Courses: You should never stop growing and learning and with so many online options available, you can drill down into the niche expertise required to help bridge any skills gaps and complement your specific professional growth plan. 
• Find A Coach or Mentor: Someone experienced you can lean on, get advice, maybe some guidance. Often it’s about having someone you respect who can act as a sounding board and help you to both build and execute that career road map. 
• Don’t Be Afraid To Ask What You Need : Good Employers Will Want To Help: there is a famous saying that “what’s worse than a good employee training and leaving? A bad employee not training and staying” – be confident in asking your employer for the training, tools and support to make the most out of your talent. 
• Focus On Intentional Actions: What steps each day will get you to where you want to be? 
• Read And Lead: Professional growth is turbo charged when you read about what others have done to achieve success.

CTO Academy & Professional Growth Planning

CTO Academy is the only platform in the world that provides tech leaders with bespoke eLearning plans focused around the development of their management and softer skills. Our video course content and mentoring, allied to career development arm, means we provide a unique end-to-end service.

Our courses have been ranked as one of the best CTO courses in the world and we’re compared with leading global institutions when it comes to effective training and value for money.

The VP of Engineering is a senior executive who manages development teams and is responsible for the technical strategy and execution of the company’s products or services.

In other words, a Vice President of Engineering is responsible for:

• Ensuring that design requirements are met.
• Overseeing the consistency of user experiences.
• Managing a team of engineers and developers.

If the CTO knows the destination then a VP is identifying the route.

3 Primary Tasks of a VP of Engineering

A VPE has three primary tasks:

1. Ensure that all processes run smoothly.
2. Create a culture that rewards motivation and cooperation.
3. Keep everyone’s eyes on the prize.

To make all of this happen, the VP of engineering needs to focus on who is doing the work and how they are doing it. Let’s now explain these tasks in more detail.

VP of Engineering Job Description

While the core responsibilities of a VP of Engineering remain consistent across different company stages, there are notable differences in emphasis and focus between start-ups and fast-growing companies.

The following table best sums it up:

In essence:

• Start-up VP of Engineering: A builder and innovator, laying the groundwork for future growth.
• Fast-growing company VPE: A scaling expert and leader, driving efficiency and alignment as the company expands.

Both roles require a unique blend of technical expertise, leadership skills and business acumen, but the emphasis shifts as the company evolves.

We’ll now explain responsibilities in more detail, separately for start-ups and fast-growing companies.

VP of Engineering in Start-ups

The emphasis is on building foundations. Hence, the VP of Engineering in a start-up focuses on these three areas:

• Establishing the core engineering team.
• Creating the culture.
• Designing processes from the ground up (ie, defining the initial tech stack, setting up development workflows and implementing quality assurance practices).

As you can expect, in start-ups, VPEs have more hands-on involvement with coding, architecture and technical decision-making due to smaller team size and limited resources.

Limited budgets and resources demand creative problem-solving and efficient resource allocation.  This often requires pivoting which means that the VP of Engineering must be highly adaptable and able to adjust the technical direction quickly in response to changing market needs and/or immediate state of funds.

And as we move to the next stage of the company’s development, things change.

VPE In Fast-Growing Companies

In this stage, the VPEs play a more significant role in aligning the technical roadmap with the company’s evolving business goals and long-term vision. The focus, therefore, shifts towards scaling the engineering organisation, processes and infrastructure to accommodate rapid growth. This usually includes:

• Hiring and onboarding new engineers.
• Implementing more robust systems.
• Optimising for efficiency.  

And since the team grows, the Vice President of Engineering needs to delegate effectively, empower engineering managers and foster a culture of ownership and accountability.

The Challenge of Remaining Agile During Scaling

While scaling is crucial, the VPE must preserve the company’s agility and, thus, the ability to innovate quickly in a competitive landscape. Here is a quick guide to do this job effectively:

1. Modularise the architecture:

• Break down the monolithic architecture into smaller, independent services (microservices). This allows teams to work autonomously, deploy updates frequently and reduce dependencies.
• Implement clear APIs and contracts between services to ensure seamless communication and integration.

2. Empower autonomous teams:

• Organise engineers into small, cross-functional teams with end-to-end ownership of specific product areas or services.
• Give these teams the autonomy to make decisions, choose their tools and deploy their code independently.
• Foster a culture of trust and accountability within each team.

3. Streamline processes:

• Implement agile development methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) to promote iterative development, frequent feedback and rapid adaptation to change.
• Automate repetitive tasks (testing, deployment, infrastructure management) to free up engineers’ time for innovation.
• Continuously evaluate and improve processes to eliminate bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

4. Invest in the right infrastructure:

• Adopt cloud-native technologies and infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP) to enable scalability, flexibility and rapid provisioning of resources.
• Implement robust monitoring and observability tools to detect and resolve issues quickly.
• Embrace DevOps practices to automate infrastructure management and streamline deployments.

5. Foster a culture of learning and experimentation:

• Encourage engineers to experiment with new technologies, share knowledge and learn from failures.
• Promote a growth mindset and create a safe space for taking risks.
• Dedicate time for hackathons, innovation sprints and continuous learning initiatives.

6. Prioritise communication and collaboration:

• Establish clear communication channels and encourage transparent information sharing across teams.
• Use collaboration tools (Slack, Microsoft Teams) to facilitate real-time communication and knowledge sharing.
• Foster a culture of open feedback and continuous improvement.

7. Hire for agility:

• Look for adaptable engineers who have a growth mindset and are comfortable with ambiguity.
• Prioritise problem-solving skills, collaboration abilities and a passion for learning.
• Build a diverse team with a variety of perspectives and experiences.

These seven strategies will ensure agility and responsiveness even in times of rapid growth (a unicorn effect).

Differences Between VP of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer Roles

The VP of Engineering and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) have distinct focuses and responsibilities. Here’s a breakdown of their key differences:

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

• Sets the overall technological vision and strategy for the company, aligning it with business goals.
• Represents the company’s technology vision to external stakeholders (investors, customers, partners).
• Focuses on long-term innovation, emerging technologies and research and development.
• Concerned with the strategic impact of technology on the company’s growth and competitive advantage.

VP of Engineering

• Responsible for the day-to-day operations of the engineering department, ensuring efficient project execution.
• Manages and leads engineering teams, oversees project delivery and ensures quality standards.
• Focuses on optimising engineering processes, resource allocation and team performance.
• Tackles technical challenges, removes roadblocks and ensures projects are delivered on time and within budget.

In summary, we can say that the CTO is a visionary with an outward focus who drives innovation by thinking about the bigger picture. The VP of Engineering, on the other hand, is an execution expert with an inward focus that demonstrates superior problem-solving skills and operational excellence.

And here is the good analogy that best describes these differences.

Imagine a car company. The CTO is like the chief designer, envisioning the future of automobiles, researching new technologies and shaping the overall brand identity. The VP of Engineering is like the head of manufacturing, ensuring that the cars are built efficiently, meet quality standards and are delivered to customers on time.

Key Differences Summarised:

Reporting Structure

In many organisations, the VP of Engineering reports to the CTO. This structure allows for clear alignment between the technical vision and its execution. However, in some cases, both roles may report directly to the CEO, especially in smaller companies.

Ultimately, the specific responsibilities and relationship between the CTO and VP of Engineering can vary depending on the company’s size, structure and industry.

VP of Engineering Salary

The average salary for a Vice President of Engineering in the United States varies depending on the source and factors such as experience, location and company size. Here are some recent figures:

• According to Salary.com, the average annual salary is approximately $297,213, with a range typically between $264,753 and $335,333.
• Indeed reports an average salary of around $211,132 per year.
• ZipRecruiter lists the average annual pay at about $215,595.
• Comparably states the average salary is $239,461 per year.

In the UK, figures are somewhat different:

• PayScale reports an average annual salary of £101,307, with a range typically between £75,000 and £139,000.
• According to Salary.com, the average salary is around £126,352 per year, with a range from £98,795 to £153,075.
• Indeed lists the average salary at approximately £126,769 per year.

These figures should give you a good idea of what to expect for this role in the UK. And you can search for VP Engineering jobs by visiting any of these links, of course.

Conclusion

Becoming a great VP of Engineering is a journey that requires a unique blend of technical expertise, leadership acumen and strategic thinking. It’s about more than just writing code; it’s about building and empowering high-performing teams, driving innovation and aligning technology with business goals.

And here’s a handy roadmap to that role:

1. Master Your Craft:

• Develop deep technical expertise.
• Gain hands-on experience.
• Stay curious and keep learning.

2. Cultivate Leadership Skills:

• Embrace a growth mindset.
• Develop strong communication skills.
• Build a collaborative culture.
• Become a mentor and coach.

3. Embrace Strategic Thinking:

• Understand the business context.
• Develop a product mindset.
• Think long-term.

4. Build Your Network:

• Connect with other engineers.
• Engage with the broader tech community.
• Build relationships with stakeholders.

5. Seek Opportunities for Growth:

• Take on leadership roles.
• Seek out challenging assignments.
• Embrace continuous learning.

We work with people in this role from around the world, helping them build the leadership skills and confidence to progress their career to the most senior roles including CTO.

If you’d like more information about what it takes to become a VP of Engineering, get in touch with us.

Not every tech leader follows a traditionally tech led career.

As most companies are now technical companies roles like the CMO can sometimes have a bigger tech budget than the CTO and it’s more possible than before to achieve senior tech roles via non traditional routes, though it’s highly unusual.

What does happen quite often is that being an effective CTO doesn’t mean you are necessarily the person with the best technical skills in an organisation.

A CTO has many responsibilities and tasks, he/she wears many hats and that is the reason why for example, being the best at coding is not of primary importance.

A CTO should be aware of technology trends and have the skill to use the trends in the favor of a product that is being developed in a company. More important are the soft skills that define the highly effective tech leaders – communication, collaboration, empathy, EQ, critical thinking. capacity to learn and adapt.

When we are talking technical skills, his/her knowledge shouldn’t be limited to only one side of the product (e.g. back-end). A CTO should have knowledge in the full-stack range in order to make the right decision about the product as a whole – to choose the architecture, the appropriate technologies while keeping in mind the growth and the scalability of a product, to put it simply, to have a clear vision of a product. But he/she certainly doesn’t have to be the best full-stack developer in the company.

If you’d like to find out more about the route into tech leadership, visit the CTO Academy website.

Many of us have travelled the journey from junior developer to senior developer to tech leader. We know and understand where you’re coming from and where you want to go. It’s why we launched CTO Academy, to make it easier to negotiate that journey from the technical to the managerial. But let’s dive deeper into what that journey looks like.

If you’re an ambitious software developer then next step can be tech lead.

A tech lead can mean different things: a team lead (with no direct reports), or a manager. For example, an engineering manager is a person responsible for the team and its projects which means they are also responsible for peoples’ careers, business growth, deliverables, deadlines, culture, code standards, technical debt, and more.

If you’re a developer, it may not be clear how to get from where you are to a technical leadership position. If your goal is to become a manager soon, you will need to ask yourself why you want this role. Make sure those senior roles are aligned to your core skills and ultimate purpose. What are your core values and what type of role and company will be matched with them? Really important to clarify these fundamentals early in your career to avoid travelling down the wrong path.

It is important to be honest about what drives you — is it writing code and architecting software or helping others to get better results, negotiating deadlines with stakeholders, and convincing your business team that code refactoring is not a waste of time? Your answers to these questions should help you determine which path is more appropriate for your desired outcomes.

If you’re still convinced a technical leadership path is right for you, then you have some work ahead of you. Consider working with your manager or a mentor to have them help you in areas where you are less familiar. Here is an outline of ten key areas of focus:

Stepping up. A true leader can lead without the title or authority. Anyone with a fancy title and enough authority given by the organization chart can give orders. But that’s not what leadership is — it is about what you do.

Therefore, you should start small. Take on more responsibilities during difficult projects. Help your peers by providing feedback in pull requests. Volunteer to present on the project updates. Propose improvements to your team or product workflow. Mentor a colleague.

There are enough opportunities that people either don’t want to see or don’t have enough expertise or confidence to take on. Determine what your colleagues are struggling with, and then step up and do them.

Ownership. When taking on responsibilities, be accountable for everything you do or don’t do. A leader takes responsibility and avoids blaming others for mistakes, missing deadlines, or bugs.

Rather than complaining about a bug someone introduced, just help them fix it and explain how to avoid it in the future. Coming up with excuses doesn’t help anyone. Take the time to deliver what you committed to. If necessary, negotiate a better deadline with your manager. Run a project like your own business and actually care about it.

Recently, one of the tech leads on my team pulled the latest master branch. They saw a big drop in unit test coverage. Rather than complaining, he added missing test coverage. And then presented how to properly check for the coverage and how to write a unit test for complex features. He offered to help if anyone needs it without blaming anyone. The team appreciated that.

Relationships (or politics). Sometimes people misinterpret relationships and call them “politics”. They are the same things. If you don’t want to deal with “politics” then perhaps think again if you want to get into leadership in the first place.

Building meaningful relationships is one of the responsibilities of engineering managers. Management is making things happen through other people. Start building good relationships with other engineering managers. They are your future peers.

There are a few ways to do this, such as presenting at tech talks, doing workshops, and mentoring developers outside of your team. Engineering managers will appreciate the relationships you build through these tasks.

Technical expertise. An engineering manager should be an engineer first. They must have a strong software engineering background and hands-on experience. Becoming one of the strongest engineers on the team is a requirement. A manager who can’t code or doesn’t understand the technical details can’t take part in technical discussions. Once you become a manager, you should always keep your skills sharp enough to be competent at higher level architecture.

Mentorship. Any “really good developer” on the team who’s not a team player is more harmful than helpful. If you’re technically strong, then you should be helping others to get to your level. Pair programming, code reviews, presentations, open source or inner source projects are all great examples of how to get started in mentoring others.

It is rare for someone to come to you and ask you to mentor them. Yet, by branding yourself “the expert” and proactively doing the things mentioned above, people will naturally start coming to you for advice. By helping others you build meaningful relationships and gain people’s respect. Hopefully, they do the same in return and mentor others as well.

Project management. Delivering projects on time is one of the core responsibilities of any leader. If, as a developer, you’re constantly missing deadlines and underestimating tasks, others can’t trust you. You have to be organized and be on top of your tasks.

We all know estimating software projects is hard as there is a lot of uncertainty. However, with the right process, it’s not impossible. Constantly communicate the progress and expectations of the project with your manager or stakeholders.

For example, my team is doing a weekly status report, where the project tech leads have an opportunity to communicate the progress, mention any blockers or raise a major concern of not delivering on time.

Communication. Communicating clearly and concisely is a very important characteristic of any leader. If you can’t explain clearly what you want from your team, then you have failed as a leader before any work even begins.

Communication comes in many forms, including verbal, written and even body language. Always work on improving all of your communication skills.

My team missed a few deadlines because I failed to communicate the requirements clearly and on-time. There were few instances where the lack of communication created confusion on the team who was supposed to do what. I learned that relying on project managers or business stakeholders to explain the project details isn’t working. An engineering manager has to understand the project and then explain it and sell it to the team. And motivate them to want to work on it.

Managing up. Manage your manager (and sometimes their manager). This means constantly communicating with them and managing expectations. Managers rarely like surprises, good or bad. Establish trusting relationships with your manager. Be the go-to person for important and high profile projects, and actually get them done on time and on budget. Then more projects will follow and you can repeat the process.

Conflict and crises. Production issues happen, no matter how many unit or integration tests you have. Yes, you want to minimize the number of bugs your projects have. What matters more is how you handle production issues. A person who starts panicking under pressure is immediately disqualified as a leader in the eyes of others. The team and other managers want to see a calm person who has everything under control, even in the most stressful situations.

A tech lead I used to work with was always calm. There was no conflict or pressure that could make him snap. At least nobody saw him stressed out. When it came to handling a production issue at 3 am, he didn’t disappoint. The issue was fixed in minutes and he showed up to work as if nothing happened.

Another tech lead got so stressed out with the deadline he called in sick on the day we were supposed to launch the feature. He was so anxious, it made everyone else around him uncomfortable to work with him.

Even though these are 2 complete opposites, you can guess which one was more successful as a tech lead.

Vision. For everything they are responsible for, a leader should understand “why”. They are also responsible for ensuring everyone else understands “why” they are working on a project. A leader must explain (often many times) why the project is happening, why the specific people are working on it and how this project fits into the “big picture”. A team has to believe in what they do, only then can they can be effective.

CTO Academy work with ambitious developers around the world, helping them build the skills and execute the career roadmap that help them achieve the career and reward they want and deserve. If you’d like more information then visit the CTO Academy website.

The CTO Academy community is not only growing and facilitating the career transition of thousands of tech leaders within the UK, it’s also gone global with customers and contributors from every corner of the world – Guatemala to Sydney, Bangalore to Sao Paulo.

But despite a myriad of different countries, companies, roles and responsibilities there are consistent challenges when it comes to leadership and management.

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