When a Guru Software Developer is not a Startup CTO

In my last post, I talked about super developers and the skills and traits that might make them inclined to become startup CTO’s. There is no doubt that developers with the speed and skills that I outlined are capable of delivering early versions of a website, application, or software product. But, it’s been my experience that these skills alone are not enough. In fact, developers with only this skill set that choose the CTO startup route could create a disaster not only for the startup, but for their careers as well.

Good developers themselves should know why this is the case. They know that when developing a software product, the coding of the product should be the easy part. They’ll tell you that if you have good requirements, if you identify the scope of each feature correctly, if you prioritize your stories, if you design before code, and especially if you follow a test driven methodology and develop unit tests before coding, then this is true, the coding becomes the easy part. But here is the disconnect: all these things, developing requirements, priorities, and testing methodologies are all very difficult to achieve and may be overkill in a startup.

In my experience, one key role of a startup CTO is to quickly determine how much effort should be applied to these different disciplines and tasks in developing software. Does the feature require prototyping? Does the user interface need testing? Could performance be an issue and should this be tested? To what degree, if any, should the code for a feature set be designed for reuse? Identifying how much investment in time or money in a feature is a key question for any development exercise but is absolutely critical in a startup.

So the quick answer to the question of whether a guru developer can be a startup CTO is a maybe, but probably not. A fast developer that jumps into feature design, software design, and coding will fail to recognize the costs and risks of the development exercises.

A guru developer also needs skills in project management, software QA, and some experience negotiating with business people on requirements. They need experience working with small teams and have to be strong at informal methods of estimating cost and risk.

But is that enough? It’s a start but I’ll elaborate in my next posts.

2 comments:

  1. Sure look forward to youer next post. Iam good at writin code myself and also own a startup. Don't know whether to call myself a CTO or CEO?

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  2. This is the first time when I came on this topic and luckily found it nice thanks for this one. This is the first time when I came on this topic and luckily found it nice thanks for this one. I must like to appreciat
    Web developer

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About Isaac Sacolick

Isaac Sacolick is President of StarCIO, a technology leadership company that guides organizations on building digital transformation core competencies. He is the author of Digital Trailblazer and the Amazon bestseller Driving Digital and speaks about agile planning, devops, data science, product management, and other digital transformation best practices. Sacolick is a recognized top social CIO, a digital transformation influencer, and has over 900 articles published at InfoWorld, CIO.com, his blog Social, Agile, and Transformation, and other sites. You can find him sharing new insights @NYIke on Twitter, his Driving Digital Standup YouTube channel, or during the Coffee with Digital Trailblazers.