Ask HN: Technical director from 6 years, my boss recruited a CTO

15 points by lejeanvaljean 11 years ago | 13 comments

Hello HN, I'm technical director, one of the first employees (we were 10 people), since 6 years in a successful company (450 now and counting). After proving multiple times that I do not count my working hours and efforts for this company, building software that only a few people could have done (an adserver for example), my boss recruited a CTO after telling me that he would never recruit a manager for the tech. Yes there are other technical directors since the company bought multiple ones in the latest months.

What should I do ? Quit ?

Thank you for your advice and ideas.

joelennon 11 years ago |

From your post you cite your contribution to the company primarily in terms of building software. Have you experience building and managing large teams of engineers? Have you experience working with finances, budgeting, forecasting? Have you planned out a solid structure that will enable teams to grow? Have you strong knowledge of technical architecture and infrastructure as well as software development? I could go on. Is this all part of your role as technical director?

Maybe you have all of these things, but the main thing you called out was that you have "built software that only a few people could have done". Being CTO of a 450 person company involves a lot more than just building software. Again I could be misreading your situation, please clarify if I am.

It sucks that your boss said he would never hire a manager for tech, but by the sounds of it the company dynamic is volatile with acquisitions. As for whether you should quit, no one here can tell you whether you should or not. Why not raise your grievance with your boss and make the case for getting what you want, and then make your decision from there. Just be sure you actually know what it is that you want - if you want to keep primarily building software a CTO role may not be for you.

hga 11 years ago |

"my boss recruited a CTO after telling me that he would never recruit a manager for the tech"

In these sorts of situations, where your boss has lied to you, or echoing joelennon's comment, didn't first explain to you why this change needed to be made, it's hard to see an acceptable solution other than one of you leaving the company. Whatever respect you've thought you've earned doesn't see to be there, does it?

Another issue: you now have competition as a technical director, and if you are, as it sounds, great at tech and not so great at politics (you were, after all, blindsided by this), you may not like what's going to be happening at your company. E.g. one story of Netscape's decline and fall on the browser side is their acquiring an unsuccessful company and the people from that company somehow managing to wrest control of the development of the next generation browser, and abjectly failing.

I.e. Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bu...

alain94040 11 years ago |

This can go one of two ways.

1) Let's be optimistic: this new CTO is an amazing person, super smart, will bring a lot of value to the company, and you will grow a lot by working with that person. So it's good.

2) The pessimistic view: this move was purely political, this new CTO is no one special, it's just one extra layer of management and taking your responsibilities away. You were doing a great job before, and now your job is made more complicated and less efficient.

Swallow your ego for a second and give that person a chance. If they perform really well, then admit it was the right move. If they are just average, then think of your next step. It doesn't mean quitting necessarily. It could just be that after a few months, it becomes clear that the CTO is not that great and your influence may be restored. Or maybe it's an opportunity for you to offload some of your current tasks and take on new parts of the company (get more involved in sales, or whatever else you are curious about).

notahacker 11 years ago | |

There's also option (2b) The new CTO is no-one special, but actually spends most of their time dealing with administrative bullshit related to the integration, leaving you more free to focus on managing your team and architecting ad-servers.

Given the only context we've got is that the new CTO has no background in design decisions related to your problem domain or affiliation with any of the acquired companies but is an ex-company leader with the trust of the CEO, I'd even speculate that's the most likely outcome.

arethuza 11 years ago |

You have my sympathy - I found out I wasn't CTO of the start-up I co-founded anymore (~100 employees at that point) in a presentation to a customer. I was quite annoyed by that...

NB This was ~12 years ago so well over it by now and it was probably the right thing to do - but the manner in which it was done wasn't handled very well.

darklighter3 11 years ago |

Successful startups go through a couple of phases as they grow. At each phase the skills needed from the team will change because the challenges to get to the next level are different. And the team will often turn over along the way. Not everyone who was there in the beginning will be there at the end. And that's okay. Now maybe you have the skills and experience to grow with the organization along the way or maybe you don't. Lots of people maybe can and maybe can't. Sometimes it depends upon where you are in your career. Was this your first time managing? Then maybe you need more experience and growth to be the CTO of such a large org. It can often feel like a demotion when you are passed over and senior positions are filled from the outside. I understand where you are coming from. I've been in your position.

Whether the CEO lied to you or not really depends upon context. When did he tell you this? Obviously things have changed as the company has grown. Perhaps he didn't foresee the need for a CTO at the time but now he does. Things change and the needs of the company change with them. And remember he himself is growing and learning as a manager. If he was inexperienced he probably just couldn't foresee the need. Also how realistic is it that a growing/successful technology company won't have a CTO? I find it unusual that it took until ~450 people to get one.

Where do you go from here? If you'd like to be CTO (of your current company or another) the first step is an honest self assessment of the skills and experience you'll need to attain and perform in the position. Second you'll want to talk to the CEO about where you fit in to the company and your room for growth. You'll need to convey your understanding of the need to bring in senior management but also convey that you feel that you can grow along with the org to accept more responsibility. See if you can lay out a plan to do that. If you don't like what you hear coming out of that process then its time to start looking around.

Ben Horowitz has a really good blog post that touches on a lot of this stuff. http://www.bhorowitz.com/demoting_a_loyal_friend

hga 11 years ago | |

"Whether the CEO lied to you or not really depends upon context...."

While you have a point here, I think the real issue is that the CEO never came back to lejeanvaljean and said "I made a mistake, we're going to have to...." Instead, without warning, he hired an old friend who's not apparently qualified for the position.

It's the latter act that tells lejeanvaljean exactly how bad his position in this company is. Heck, it wouldn't be in the least surprising for him to get fired no matter what his performance is going forward, that's a very common pattern in companies that turn political like this.

lejeanvaljean 11 years ago |

Hello again,

Thank you for your comments.

I did manage the growth of the technical team, projects, infrastructure and everything else that you talked about. I won't have asked if it was not the case but you're right to ask.

This CTO was leading a company that is not related in our core business at all. He is an old friend of the boss, so I suppose that I should have more CEO friends.

Anyway, I was hoping that when you enter a company as a tech leader, you don't get someone telling you what to do next except the founders. The example of arethuza proves that I'm not the only one in this case.

And yes I still have options so quitting would mean losing money, and yes it's up to me, I can see what will happen next but I think I lost 1) my motivation and 2) a lot of projects in this operation.

Thank you all for your replies.

bengali3 11 years ago |

Learn to be a CTO. Experience has told me this has nothing to do with coding ability or technical knowledge, it's about being able to sell yourself and positioning yourself to get what you want.

Why did the CEO turn down your plan for increasing profit ()? My point is clearly he weighs the new guys plan over yours. Figure out how to change that perception. Read Seth Godin

Roles can get created out of thin air. Does your company already have a Chief Marketing/Revenue/Content/Product Officer?? You dont need to go head to head with the new guy, find your next path.

Best of luck!

bencollier49 11 years ago |

There was a story like this elsewhere some while ago and I think the consensus was that the CEO was trying to stiff the guy out of shares.

Do you have options which would be rescinded if you left in a huff?

davelnewton 11 years ago |

There's not enough information here to provide any meaningful advice.

Unrelated, but define "a few" w.r.t. building an "ad server".

ddorian43 11 years ago |

Teach me your adserver knowledge. Or some blogs/books/tutorial/video/whatever about adserver development. I don't have any advice, sorry.

jf22 11 years ago |

I think there may be a problem if counting your working hours is one of two benefits to the company you've shared with us.