Ask HN: Anyone as a technical startup founder wish they had a manager?

2 points by erlich 2 years ago | 1 comment

Technical founders usually have deep conviction behind an idea and need to build the proof-of-concept themselves.

It feels like it's kind of assumed a founder would be a CTO/manager type. But usually you take the role of an individual contributor, and act as a product manager, engineering manager and senior dev and have to manage yourself. This kind of setup is actually rare out in a lot of later stage companies.

I find myself wishing I had a manager above me, rather than me becoming a manager and hiring someone else. But it seems wrong if I'm the founder.

Anyone else?

orbz 2 years ago |

Many time founder here, always in the CTO role. You’re absolutely right, it sucks. It’s near impossible to be good at all those things. In fact, you’re often times expected to run compliance and do sales on top of it all.

This is one of the reasons it’s such a lonely job that causes so much burnout. You’re often the only person who understands the entire system and problem space you’re building for.

You have to find out what your super powers are and then shift yourself into a role fit for that with your hiring. Better manager? Hire a bunch of devs. Better dev? Hire a director or equivalent of engineering to manage devs for you and move yourself into an architecture role. Often times as the most senior engineering person at the company you will be the only one who is capable of committing to big bets, regardless of if you do it yourself or if you instruct others to do it and provide them air cover.

Regardless, if you’re feeling aimless at this point I urge you to get a mentor or career coach. They’ll fill in some of what you’re missing management wise.