What It’s Like To Lead An Engineering Org: Thoughts On “CTO In The Loop”

I just read CTO In The Loop by Balki Kodarapu. It’s free on Kindle through July 20th, so if you want to give it a read, go do that now. It’s a narrative arc following a developer, “Sam”, who starts as a software engineer at a startup, and ends up a fractional CTO after a career that includes engineering manager, director of engineering and VP of engineering at a company that IPOs. The book was a fun read, and does a good job describing what it’s like to build a company and a software business from the early days to a more mature organization. The realities of Sam’s growth ring true: he starts out focused on features and clarity, and then moves up levels of abstraction. He loses touch with tasks and areas that used to matter, but gains higher level views and more ability to influence the organization. As a director, if you’re still reviewing PRs the way you used to, you’re basically breaking your organization We also see the evolution of several other characters, including Priya the…