CTO vs. VP of Engineering

My talk presented with @jasonh at #monkigras. Update: video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAHItZ1cSNM

Transcript

1. CTO vs. VP of Engineering: Whatʼs the Difference? (And does it matter?) CTO jason@joyent.com Jason Hoffman @jasonh VP, Engineering bryan@joyent.com Bryan Cantrill @bcantrill
2. The genesis of this talk 2
3. CTO vs. VP of Engineering • In many startups especially, the difference between a CTO and VP of Engineering becomes blurry • There is often enough overlap that one person can do both jobs when the company is tiny... • ...but as a team expands, the need for distinct roles grows • One is not necessarily subservient to the other — both roles are critical and they must work as a team • What are these roles? 3
4. CTO? • The CTO is the Chief Technology Officer, and in a startup, will likely be the technical co-founder • The CTO establishes the vision and culture • The CTO must be as technical as required to validate the vision and the culture • Beyond this, the CTO is (or should be) largely outward facing — the CTO should understand the relationship between the technology and the larger world • As a company grows and expands, the CTO will be at a crossroads: become the VP of Engineering and hire a CTO, or remain the CTO and hire a VP of Engineering 4
5. VP of Engineering? • The Vice President of Engineering is responsible for the development and delivery of the product • Critically, this includes the recruitment of the team • Should be the exemplar of engineering • Should be an engineer that the team feels comfortable looking to on a wide range of technical problems 5
6. So who innovates? • Neither the CTO nor the VP of Engineering is singularly responsible for innovation; they most foster it together • They must create a culture (CTO) and a team (VP of Engineering) that is empowered to think big • Both CTO and VP of Engineering must — as a team — embrace ideas, explore them and expand upon them • The CTO must communicate them upward and outward • The VP of Engineering must distill them into shipping product or functional system 6
7. Anti-patterns • Because the specifics of the roles can vary significantly from company to company, itʼs hard to prescribe one “right” way to divide the CTO from VP of Engineering • Easier to define the wrong way • There are particular anti-patterns for these two roles that seem to represent common failure modes • Broadly, CTOs fail when they think that they are engineers, not communicators; VPs of Engineering fail when they think they are managers of people, not creators of useful things 7
8. CTO Anti-pattern: The Critic 8
9. VPoE Anti-pattern: The Process Queen 9
10. CTO Anti-pattern: The Control Freak 10
11. VPoE Anti-pattern: The No-Op 11
12. CTO Anti-pattern: The Xenophobe 12
13. VPoE Anti-pattern: The Upward Manager 13
14. CTO Anti-pattern: The Creator 14
15. VPoE Anti-pattern: The Cat Herder 15
16. CTO Anti-pattern: The Space Ranger 16
17. VPoE Anti-pattern: The Naysayer 17
18. Thank you! 18 @jasonh @bcantrill