
Ask HN: Advice for first time CTO - PericlesTheo
I will be joining a small seeded startup as a CTO in the next couple of weeks. What are some of the things you wished you knew &#x2F;did early on? Looking for advice mainly in culture (both tech and product) and hiring. Anything else of course is truly welcomed.
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wrestlerman
Never been a CTO, but, don't be afraid to give some of your responsibilities
to other people. Not sure how else to describe it, what I mean is just don't
expect yourself to do everything, you have dev team for coding, etc.

Make sure your developers have everything they need to do their job: like
tools, specs, docs, designs, etc.

And don't be afraid to ask questions to your developers, there is no way you
will know the product 100%.

That's a message from a regular dev.

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meh2frdf
Your a cto of a startup, don’t confuse this with cto of an enterprise, very
different level of maturity and experience.

Good luck :)

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malux85
Your job is to maximise productivity of your team, this means you only hire
people you believe in.

I would review about 100 CV's before deciding on 10 interviews and 1 would get
hired. It takes an enormous amount of effort but it's worth it for the right
people.

Put your ego aside. Pretend you didn't know something so a junior can teach it
to you - they will feel good for several days and be mega productive. I
mentored a junior all the way through to becoming a senior, and then when he
started mentoring younger developers I told him about this, and that I knew
most of the things that he was teaching me, and he thought it hilariously
funny, but he told me that he used to feel amazing that he taught a senior
something. This kind of wisdom comes with experience and age, as your time
horizons broaden you start being able to appreciate the near and long term
simultaneously.

You also need good people skills, there's going to be technical arguments that
you will have to settle, and you will likely not be as expert in the
technologies as the participants, and if you're unable to resolve it
diplomatically and logically then you may have to pull rank. Stay calm and
explain your reasoning, most programmers will respect logical arguments. If
someone is very very passionate about a particular choice, then ask them if
they are willing to take full responsibility for it's implementation, as long
as it's not a critical bit of infra that you cant afford to gamble on. Use
good judgement. Maybe the topic can be answered after 2-3 days of
experimenting on each choice.

Delegate, delegate, delegate. Give people clear responsibility. Tell them
you're depending on them, and want them to step up.

Talk to them about their future and goals. Give them the opportunity to work
towards some goal they want in their career, tell them you want to support
them. In return they will support you. The more you give the more you get (but
hire the right people)

Praise in public. Discipline in private.

Make work fun. I used to award "geek points" for innovative and creative
solutions, we didn't keep track rigorously but it was a fun dopamine burst for
the people who were clearly extending themselves.

Tease people gently, take away geek points for breaking the build server. Joke
and laugh about the time _you_ also broke the build server, or rebooted the
clients production machine, or something silly.

A small, well timed gift is a real spirit lifter. Dont do this too often.

Remember that a lot of programmers are introverts, and thus don't want to go
to the pub after work, they wanna go home where it's quiet. Respect peoples
private time and lives. If you wanna socialise then knock off 2 hours early on
a friday, chat for an hour, and then everyone goes home an hour early. Dont do
this too often.

That's all I can think of right now, good luck!

