What Does a CTO Do in a Small Tech Company?

[1/5] Recently I was asked what I usually do as a CTO in small tech companies.

I try to improve:

• Developer efficiency and time management
• Project and product management
• Issue management
• Code reviews
• Release handover
• Hiring process
• On/off boarding

[2/5]

• Team partitioning
• Progress and status updates
• Development environment
• Build process
• Continuous integration
• Continuous deployment
• Fail-over

[3/5]

• Scaling
• Data backup and restoration
• Security
• Architecture assessment
• Reducing complexity
• Off-the-shelf building blocks
• Test datasets

[4/5]

• Code quality
• Testing
• Incident reporting
• Logging, monitoring, and alerting
• “Make change easy, make easy change” method
• Developer work environment (office, home, remote)
• Managing remote teams

[5/5]

• Meeting efficiency
• Pair programming
• Deadlines & structural overtime
• Channeling and handling business/customer input
• Working with designers and product owners
• Tone of voice and using the Scientific Method
• Reasoning from First Principles