For an early stage startup, the CTO often dives deep into the technical details, focused intensely on building the minimal viable product. Their world revolves around lines of code rather than lines of revenue. The CTO leads a small team where everyone needs to roll up their sleeves and code.
But as the company matures, this heads-down approach can limit growth. The CTO role must evolve dramatically, from hands-on builder to strategic conductor overseeing diverse engineering teams. CEOs who understand this progression can better partner with their technology chiefs through the scaling journey. The CTO transforms from directing a few developers to orchestrating an engineering symphony across the enterprise. Understanding this progression and going in with the right expectation is key for scaling successfully. Based on my experience working in and with businesses of all sizes and shapes, here is how the CTO role tends to evolve over time:
The Lean Startup CTO
In the beginning, it’s all hands on deck. Alone or with just a few developers under their wing, the CTO mainly rolls up their sleeves alongside the team. Their main contribution to the business is entirely focused on manifesting the MVP, turning the whiteboard visions into reality.
In these close quarters, everyone needs to pull their weight coding and designing. Tradeoffs are made quickly based on execution speed, not process. The CTO must intimately understand the technology and make swift decisions to drive relentless progress. This start-up, heads-down style delivers tremendous velocity but starts to limit the role as the company grows.
As a CEO aim to empower the CTO in these early stages and judge progress based on working software shipped, and far less on the formality of the delivery process. The key discussions between CEO and CTO are about understanding when and where short term trade offs are made in technology, and how they might impact future development. Why matters more than what or how. Think about these kind of discussions: how will this scale with many new users? Can we quickly pivot to new customer insight? How quickly can you gather data to steer a decision? Less process likely means less predictability in terms of timelines and visibility into long term roadmaps. That’s ok for now as it buys you flexibility and speed. But as the organisation grows that’s the point to focus on in the development of the next level of CTO.
The Managerial CTO
As engineering teams grow into the double digits, specialized roles start to emerge – front end, backend, DevOps, QA, UX, product management. The CTO can no longer be involved in every decision or be the expert on the entire technology stack. The focus needs to expand from code to the first stage of coordination and process.
While occasional coding is likely still part of the job, the CTO must first and foremost establish processes for how the technology pieces fit together and how decisions get made. The CTO will own architecture, security and compliance; while empowering teams to execute autonomously and take independent decisions. This is a major transition point and one that not all engineers are interested in, nor good at. The balancing act for a CTO here is to retain technical gravitas while learning to delegate. Direct reports now do what the CTO used to in the last stage. Look out for a sense of “if I do it myself it’ll be better/faster” as a sign of a CTO needing to change. It’s often an uncomfortable switch for people who are used to being individual contributors to suddenly let go and achieve a result through others. As a CEO you’re helping this evolution through keeping the focus on a clearly articulated roadmap and adhering to it. Get ready to discuss priorities and resource needs. Appreciate that technical work needs to happen, but don’t be afraid to challenge your CTO to explain “why” or “why now”. And ultimately make sure the CTO is empowering his team, rather than being a bottleneck.
The Scaled CTO
As the engineering organization grows past 100 people, the CTO role inevitably moves further from the technical details. With capable VPs and managers running the show, the CTO manages managers, not individual contributors.
Their core focus becomes cross-team alignment – ensuring all departments are rowing in the same direction. The CTO serves as the glue between groups, bridging priorities and making tradeoffs to guide unified progress.
This “meta” role is difficult but essential as scale increases complexity. On the one hand a CTO still needs to be technical to keep a high bandwidth conversation with their team and understand the decisions they make. Their thinking and approach has to shift from knowing the answer to knowing the question. As CEO you can help a CTO by asking questions that get out from the minutiae to see the big picture. Success metrics also evolve. While roadmaps and delivery still matter, the key to achieving this is aligning teams around a clear vision. The CTO should be capable to abstract technical detail and start taking a broader look at the business. Work with the CTO to make sure they understand how the work their team is doing fits into the overall company strategy. Focus on discussing how teams interact and work together, and help align them on outcomes to drive behavior.
The Strategic CTO
The last stage for the CTO role has them operate as a strategic executive focused on financial performance, competitive positioning, and business partnerships; guided by technology.
With anywhere from hundred to thousands of engineers, they must effectively delegate hands-on leadership to VPs of Engineering, Architecture, and Infrastructure. The CTO represents technology in the boardroom, concerned with overall company direction. The day to day operation is run by their direct reports. The key for a CTO and their team here is no different than any other executive: establish a structure that ensures the right information bubbles to the top in a timely manner.
But much like the rest of the executive team and their part of the organization, the CTO shouldn’t lose touch with the engineering aspects. While in this stage the CTO role expands and becomes focused upwards to the board and outwards to the broader market; a CTO can never afford to ignore good technical principles and drive those in their organisation.
This variety of responsibilities shows why the CTO role must evolve through different stages. Their focus needs to move up the management skill stack – from low-level execution, to management, and strategy. But a solid technical foundation and connection to engineering should remain unchanged. While based on the same foundation of engineering, problem solving and technology vision; the skillset is so diverse it is unlikely the starting CTO will be the final CTO.
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I am Klaas Ardinois a long time technology executive and co-founder of A&H Consulting, where we work with CEO and founders to help them navigate strategic challenges in a technology dominated world.
