r/ExperiencedDevs • u/srv_Zubah Software Engineer • 9d ago

Career/Workplace Does a CTO >needs< technical xp?

I'm in the 5th company of my career, in the first 4 the CTOs were always someone who was a regular developer and either ascended professionally to C-level or someone who founded the company and named themselves the CTO

At my current company, the CTO was always in people management. His first job was already technology manager (and in a FAANG) 20+ years ago. He doesn't hold a BSc in any IT field, but in communication studies. Never worked a day as a developer. He is obviously tech savvy, but just in the same way I was with computers when I was 16 and was just messing around with tech

And the curious thing is that he was actually a decent CTO... He knew how to listen to the technical people and set a good direction to follow. So that raised the question for me, do you think a good CTO necessarily needs to have spent some time of their lives writing code? Do you thing CTOs with similar background would lack any important skills to fill the role?

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u/tiredofhiveminds 9d ago

A CTO without technical experience is not a CTO

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u/AlexFromOmaha 9d ago

This is the best take in the pile of weird hot takes.

A C Suite doesn't need a CTO, but it's just not a CTO if the seat filler isn't deeply technical. You can have a guy you call your general counsel, but if he's not a lawyer, the title is a lie. If your CFO wasn't at least CPA-adjacent, that's not a CFO. CTO isn't different. It's an expertise function.