How to become a CTO from a Software Engineer? And how much years of experience would it take?

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I'm making that transition right now! I have nearly 20 years experience as a software engineer. I am now moving into a CTO role within my same company.

One of the skills you'll want to develop to transition successfully is strategic thinking versus implementation and tactical thinking. What does that mean? It means looking out to the horizon rather than to the hilltop next to you. It means assessing technology choices based on longer term value and possibility, not just on immediate benefit. It means making tech choices that make sense from both the business view and from the technical staff view.

People skills are essential as a CTO. As my boss likes to say, in the CTO role you often have all the responsibility but none of the authority. Which means you have to harness the power of persuasion to get people to do what you want them to do. Work on active listening and on identifying the "why" on the fly for individuals. Also practice tailoring your messaging to the correct level - CEOs generally don't want the same content as CDOs or as technical staff. But you'll need to communicate effectively with all of them.

Get skilled up on business operations as well. Revenue, EBIDTA, or whatever standard metrics your company uses to track growth and value should be part of your vocabulary.

As a CTO you need breadth of understanding, across business goals and targets, revenue/profit drivers, skill sets of your company's staff, compliance requirements for data/tech in the countries your company operates within, current and upcoming tech trends, and an understanding of the desired pace of change (and your company's appetite for that change).

likehelpful

Thanks for providing an in depth explanation.

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It all depends on you and how quickly you can shift your mindset from developer to business leader.

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