CTO, the tech lead... by Lluís Inglès

The role of a CTO is to be the bridge between corporate management and the team of developers. It's a challenging role that Lluís Inglès, with his 12 years of experience, has experienced firsthand. Today, he shares the key factors that make the CTO a crucial piece in the tech sector.

The role of a CTO in developer language

• Building technology and product teams, which involves designing the structures and anticipating their growth over the years.
• Defending these growth plans with my colleagues in the leadership team and finally presenting them to the Board to have them reflected in the P&L.
• Helping implement methodologies that streamline and synchronize teams, such as company-wide OKRs and Scrum for tech/product teams.
• Contributing to code migration strategies, continuously adding value to the user with each sprint and improving the product without interrupting operations.
• Defining a product/tech roadmap aligned with key stakeholders and involving the entire tech team from the start in decision-making.
• Designing similar architectures across different teams, allowing for rotation of personnel between squads.
• Implementing a continuous career plan with job levels based on seniority and fostering ongoing learning, as well as sponsoring conferences.

Being a CTO... and being senior

Experience is usually a key factor in considering someone as senior, but I don't refer to the number of years of experience; I refer to the value they bring. From my perspective, the key skills are:

• Mentoring someone with little experience and helping them grow professionally. It's not just about what you know but how you share it.
• Getting involved in key projects for the business and taking a strategic approach to how they should be tackled.
• Prioritizing delivery speed to the customer and effectively managing the eternal engineer's pursuit of perfection.
• Speaking the same business metrics language and translating them into development execution priorities.

The Tech Lead's team and their relationship with developers

Here, each company and position is unique. In my case, during my time at Exoticca, I primarily interacted with the management team and, above all, the technology team. The relationship with the tech team gradually decreased due to the company's growth.

Regarding soft skills, I have always aimed for harmony within the teams and prefer enthusiasm and attitude over hyper-specialization. I like to see in candidates the desire to learn and do so alongside their peers. I try to steer clear of those who are overly ambitious to quickly advance solely for financial gain and instead make them understand that it's a marathon and a hobby to be enjoyed. Promotions and salary increases will come in due time.

Some reflections on being a CTO... from a CTO

The CTO is always at the forefront, and when things aren't going well, it's important to navigate those waters. Sometimes, these journeys can be short, while others may be longer, testing resilience. For me, it's an exciting position that provides a privileged view of the business and the ability to influence the most relevant people and metrics within the company. A good organization transparently shares its metrics and prioritizes projects based on them, thus preventing attempts to bypass these factors.

Don't neglect your dev side. I love programming, especially the infrastructure aspect, which serves as my outlet. Nonetheless, I truly enjoy positions like CTO, and now, as a freelancer, I'm taking advantage of it by providing advice on team growth, synchronization, and more.

There are thousands of arguments and opinions about which language is better and whether one is more suitable for a particular purpose than another. In my case, I strive to be objective and impartial when it comes to language preferences, focusing first on understanding various factors within a company, such as the main product, budget, traffic, and current state of the stack, among others.