

Ask HN: Technical director from 6 years, my boss recruited a CTO - lejeanvaljean

Hello HN,
I&#x27;m technical director, one of the first employees (we were 10 people), since 6 years in a successful company (450 now and counting). After proving multiple times that I do not count my working hours and efforts for this company, building software that only a few people could have done (an adserver for example), my boss recruited a CTO after telling me that he would never recruit a manager for the tech. Yes there are other technical directors since the company bought multiple ones in the latest months.<p>What should I do ? Quit ?<p>Thank you for your advice and ideas.
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joelennon
From your post you cite your contribution to the company primarily in terms of
building software. Have you experience building and managing large teams of
engineers? Have you experience working with finances, budgeting, forecasting?
Have you planned out a solid structure that will enable teams to grow? Have
you strong knowledge of technical architecture and infrastructure as well as
software development? I could go on. Is this all part of your role as
technical director?

Maybe you have all of these things, but the main thing you called out was that
you have "built software that only a few people could have done". Being CTO of
a 450 person company involves a lot more than just building software. Again I
could be misreading your situation, please clarify if I am.

It sucks that your boss said he would never hire a manager for tech, but by
the sounds of it the company dynamic is volatile with acquisitions. As for
whether you should quit, no one here can tell you whether you should or not.
Why not raise your grievance with your boss and make the case for getting what
you want, and then make your decision from there. Just be sure you actually
know what it is that you want - if you want to keep primarily building
software a CTO role may not be for you.

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hga
" _my boss recruited a CTO after telling me that he would never recruit a
manager for the tech_ "

In these sorts of situations, _where your boss has lied to you_ , or echoing
joelennon's comment, didn't first explain to you why this change needed to be
made, it's hard to see an acceptable solution other than one of you leaving
the company. Whatever respect you've thought you've earned doesn't see to be
there, does it?

Another issue: you now have competition as a technical director, and if you
are, as it sounds, great at tech and not so great at politics (you were, after
all, blindsided by this), you may not like what's going to be happening at
your company. E.g. one story of Netscape's decline and fall on the browser
side is their acquiring an unsuccessful company and the people from that
company somehow managing to wrest control of the development of the next
generation browser, and abjectly failing.

I.e. Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bureaucracy)

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alain94040
This can go one of two ways.

1) Let's be optimistic: this new CTO is an amazing person, super smart, will
bring a lot of value to the company, and _you_ will grow a lot by working with
that person. So it's good.

2) The pessimistic view: this move was purely political, this new CTO is no
one special, it's just one extra layer of management and taking your
responsibilities away. You were doing a great job before, and now your job is
made more complicated and less efficient.

Swallow your ego for a second and give that person a chance. If they perform
really well, then admit it was the right move. If they are just average, then
think of your next step. It doesn't mean quitting necessarily. It could just
be that after a few months, it becomes clear that the CTO is not that great
and your influence may be restored. Or maybe it's an opportunity for you to
offload some of your current tasks and take on new parts of the company (get
more involved in sales, or whatever else you are curious about).

~~~
notahacker
There's also option (2b) The new CTO is no-one special, but actually spends
most of their time dealing with administrative bullshit related to the
integration, leaving you more free to focus on managing your team and
architecting ad-servers.

Given the only context we've got is that the new CTO has no background in
design decisions related to your problem domain or affiliation with any of the
acquired companies but is an ex-company leader with the trust of the CEO, I'd
even speculate that's the most likely outcome.

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arethuza
You have my sympathy - I found out I wasn't CTO of the start-up I co-founded
anymore (~100 employees at that point) in a presentation to a customer. I was
quite annoyed by that...

NB This was ~12 years ago so well over it by now and it was probably the right
thing to do - but the _manner_ in which it was done wasn't handled very well.

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darklighter3
Successful startups go through a couple of phases as they grow. At each phase
the skills needed from the team will change because the challenges to get to
the next level are different. And the team will often turn over along the way.
Not everyone who was there in the beginning will be there at the end. And
that's okay. Now maybe you have the skills and experience to grow with the
organization along the way or maybe you don't. Lots of people maybe can and
maybe can't. Sometimes it depends upon where you are in your career. Was this
your first time managing? Then maybe you need more experience and growth to be
the CTO of such a large org. It can often feel like a demotion when you are
passed over and senior positions are filled from the outside. I understand
where you are coming from. I've been in your position.

Whether the CEO lied to you or not really depends upon context. When did he
tell you this? Obviously things have changed as the company has grown. Perhaps
he didn't foresee the need for a CTO at the time but now he does. Things
change and the needs of the company change with them. And remember he himself
is growing and learning as a manager. If he was inexperienced he probably just
couldn't foresee the need. Also how realistic is it that a growing/successful
technology company won't have a CTO? I find it unusual that it took until ~450
people to get one.

Where do you go from here? If you'd like to be CTO (of your current company or
another) the first step is an honest self assessment of the skills and
experience you'll need to attain and perform in the position. Second you'll
want to talk to the CEO about where you fit in to the company and your room
for growth. You'll need to convey your understanding of the need to bring in
senior management but also convey that you feel that you can grow along with
the org to accept more responsibility. See if you can lay out a plan to do
that. If you don't like what you hear coming out of that process then its time
to start looking around.

Ben Horowitz has a really good blog post that touches on a lot of this stuff.
[http://www.bhorowitz.com/demoting_a_loyal_friend](http://www.bhorowitz.com/demoting_a_loyal_friend)

~~~
hga
" _Whether the CEO lied to you or not really depends upon context...._ "

While you have a point here, I think the real issue is that the CEO never came
back to lejeanvaljean and said "I made a mistake, we're going to have to...."
Instead, without warning, he hired an old friend who's not apparently
qualified for the position.

It's the latter act that tells lejeanvaljean exactly how bad his position in
this company is. Heck, it wouldn't be in the least surprising for him to get
fired no matter what his performance is going forward, that's a very common
pattern in companies that turn political like this.

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lejeanvaljean
Hello again,

Thank you for your comments.

I did manage the growth of the technical team, projects, infrastructure and
everything else that you talked about. I won't have asked if it was not the
case but you're right to ask.

This CTO was leading a company that is not related in our core business at
all. He is an old friend of the boss, so I suppose that I should have more CEO
friends.

Anyway, I was hoping that when you enter a company as a tech leader, you don't
get someone telling you what to do next except the founders. The example of
arethuza proves that I'm not the only one in this case.

And yes I still have options so quitting would mean losing money, and yes it's
up to me, I can see what will happen next but I think I lost 1) my motivation
and 2) a lot of projects in this operation.

Thank you all for your replies.

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bengali3
Learn to be a CTO. Experience has told me this has nothing to do with coding
ability or technical knowledge, it's about being able to sell yourself and
positioning yourself to get what you want.

Why did the CEO turn down your plan for increasing profit ()? My point is
clearly he weighs the new guys plan over yours. Figure out how to change that
perception. Read Seth Godin

Roles can get created out of thin air. Does your company already have a Chief
Marketing/Revenue/Content/Product Officer?? You dont need to go head to head
with the new guy, find your next path.

Best of luck!

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bencollier49
There was a story like this elsewhere some while ago and I _think_ the
consensus was that the CEO was trying to stiff the guy out of shares.

Do you have options which would be rescinded if you left in a huff?

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davelnewton
There's not enough information here to provide any meaningful advice.

Unrelated, but define "a few" w.r.t. building an "ad server".

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ddorian43
Teach me your adserver knowledge. Or some blogs/books/tutorial/video/whatever
about adserver development. I don't have any advice, sorry.

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jf22
I think there may be a problem if counting your working hours is one of two
benefits to the company you've shared with us.

