
Ask HN: What is the difference between a CTO and a VP/Head of Eng/Tech? - BerislavLopac
In different places online I&#x27;ve seen different takes on the two titles, and it seems that there is no consensus which of those titles pertains mostly to technology, and which is more focused on organisation and human resources for engineering roles (although in most cases there is an agreement that there is a specialisation of this kind, at least in organisations large enough to have both roles individually). What is your experience?
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nostrademons
As you say, there's no particular consensus, and the roles vary at differing
organizations.

One distinction I've seen frequently though is that the CTO is a visionary
role, while VP Eng is an organizational role. The CTO's job is to set the
overall technology vision for the company, including technology choice,
investing in new & emerging technologies, setting an engineering culture, etc.
They're outward-facing, while the VP-eng is inwards-facing. The VP Eng's job
is to make sure the trains run on time, serve as the root of the managerial
hierarchy, identify roadblocks to further engineering progress, and coordinate
the efforts of the engineering team. Somewhat cynically, the CTO is where you
put the technical cofounder when their wanton creativity and manic energy
starts getting in the way of the engineering team's progress.

A similar distinction can be found with CEO vs. COO - the CEO is an outwards-
facing visionary role, while the COO is an inwards-facing managerial role.

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brudgers
Generally, but not always, a title which includes 'Officer' means that the
individual can contractually bind the company to contracts. That's what it
means to be an officer of a company in a legal sense. The ability to
contractually bind the company is usually the distinction between 'Executive
VP' and other 'VP' titles as well.

That does not mean that a Head of Engineering isn't an officer of the company,
but not being one would be a reason to choose one title over the other. 'Job
title as a form of compensation' is another reason.

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cjbprime
Like you say, there is no consensus. You just have to ask at each company what
the titles mean to them.

One way to ask is by percentage time spent coding vs managing. There's a
_small_ leaning of VP Eng towards more-managing rather than more-coding, but
I've been the VP Eng who was 80% coding / 20% managing.

