The Development Manager Career Path
From Junior Developer to CTO: steps and forks
Slide contents
1. The Development Manager Career Path
From Junior Developer to CTO: steps and forks
2. Speaker
Alexander Polomodov, Development Manager, large fintech
What this talk is about
The map of steps from Junior to CTO, and the two forks where the profession changes, not the grade.
Path — From Junior to Development Manager
Today — Several teams and teamleads
From Junior to Development Manager
Several teams and teamleads
3. What we'll cover
Steps: from Junior to CTO
How Senior, Teamlead, CTO differ
Skills and focus at each step
4. From Junior to CTO — one map
5. 00. Education
Lyceum → MIPT → choice between Science and Programming
6. Chose industry, not academia
Feedback comes back faster
Physics-and-math school — olympiad training
MIPT, FUPM — algorithms and CS
Fork: research or industry
Real problems instead of papers
7. 01. Individual Contributor
Junior → Middle/Analyst → Senior Developer
8. Depth and ownership grow together
Junior → Senior in 4–6 years with the right environment
0–2 years — Junior — writes code, simple tasks
2–4 years — Middle — owns features, knows the business
4–6 years — Senior — designs modules, owns NFRs
9. 02. Teamlead
A team of 4: code + people + processes
10. Teamlead owns the team
A new coordinate system
No longer the most productive
1:1s, reviews, hiring, motivation
Owning the whole team's code
Hardest part: delegating and trusting
11. 03. Development Manager
Three teams and three teamleads
12. Manage through teamleads
From team to portfolio
15–25 engineers in scope
1:1s with teamleads, not developers
Hiring, people growth, budgets
Balance product and technical health
13. Senior is not Teamlead
Technical skills vs people & process
Senior
Deep technical expertise
Architecture and domain
Path to Architect / Principal
Teamlead
People management
Process and expectations
Grows others, not themselves
A great Senior ≠ a great Teamlead
14. Teamlead is not CTO
Team context vs strategy and resources
Teamlead
Context of one team
Tactical execution
Tasks here and now
CTO
Strategy and priorities
Resource allocation
Strategic outcomes
Between them — Group Lead, Dept Lead, VP Eng
15. A CTO is measured by business results
Business impact, not code
Start from business goals
Own the architecture choice
Build teams and their processes
Let people show what they can
16. Plan the route in advance
Startup/corporation — different speed
Team size — different skills
Interests: code / people / strategy
Careers are path dependent — history matters
17. What to read next
The Manager's Path — Camille Fournier (2017)
An Elegant Puzzle — Will Larson (2019)
Staff Engineer — Will Larson (2021): staffeng.com
Team Topologies + DORA
18. Thank you!
polomodov.tech
All slides and links are in the Telegram channel
Alexander Polomodov, Development Manager, large fintech
@book_cube