Slide contents

1. 1. The Development Manager Career Path

   From Junior Developer to CTO: steps and forks

2. 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. 3. What we'll cover

   Steps: from Junior to CTO

   How Senior, Teamlead, CTO differ

   Skills and focus at each step

4. 4. From specialist to manager

5. 5. 00. Education

   Lyceum → MIPT → choice between Science and Programming

6. 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. 7. 01. Individual Contributor

   Junior, Analyst, Middle and Senior Developer

8. 8. Depth and ownership grow together

   Engineering skills and autonomy

   Junior — Learns engineering practices

   Middle — Works independently

   Senior — Solves complex technical problems

9. 9. 02. Teamlead

   Team: code, people and process

10. 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. 11. 03. Development Manager

    Three teams and three teamleads

12. 12. Manage through teamleads

13. 13. Senior is not Teamlead

    Technical skills vs people & process

    Senior

    Deep technical expertise

    Architecture and domain

    Complex technical problems

    Teamlead

    People management

    Process and expectations

    Team development

    A great Senior ≠ a great Teamlead

14. 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

    Different scopes of responsibility

15. 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. 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. 17. Thank you!

    polomodov.tech

    All slides and links are in the Telegram channel

    Alexander Polomodov, Development Manager, large fintech

    @book_cube