South HUB · October 6, 2022
How the technical leader's role evolves
What the path from team lead to CTO looks like
/ The Evolution of the Technical Leader · South HUB 2022
Slide contents
1. How the technical leader's role evolves
What the path from team lead to CTO looks like
2. Alexander Polomodov
CTO of the mobile bank, online acquisition and more
I own architecture questions across the company
I curate our System Design and Troubleshooting interviews
I interview technical leaders on management
3. For anyone who has asked these questions
Who this talk is for
What does a technical leader's career growth look like?
Is it worth growing into a team lead and beyond?
How do you do it more effectively?
4. 01. Standard growth and the fork
Where the common ladder ends
5. The rungs are clear right up to Senior
What standard growth in IT looks like
Schoolboy — 10 years
Student — 4 years, then Scientist
Junior Engineer — 2 years, then Middle
Senior Engineer — and the ladder ends
6. Past Senior the path splits in two
Two branches: team and tech
One branch is team — people and process
The other is tech — technical depth
From here the talk follows the management branch
7. 02. Team lead
The first role in the management branch
8. The role moves along three axes, not up a ladder
Process Orientation, Technical Capabilities and Scale
A team lead is about 10 people, one team
An Engineering Manager is about 50, several teams
An All-in-one CTO is about 150, the org-structure level
Delivery manager and Architect are axis extremes
9. The team lead is the team's interface to the customer
Why the business needs a team lead
A cross-functional team closes the whole loop
Idea → requirements → design
…development → deploy → operations
The customer brings the idea and gets the financial results
10. How I answered this for myself ten years ago
Why grow into this role
More influence over the end result
…both in quality and in quantity
Improving the development process inside the team
Raising the level of total compensation
11. What a team lead should read
Six links from the talk
The article behind the «SOLID team lead» talk
The article «How to become a team lead»
The talk «Development culture through a lead's eyes»
Articles on leadership and motivation, and Teamlead Roadmap
12. 03. Engineering Manager
What comes after the team lead
13. The unit of scaling is a team
Why the business needs an Engineering Manager
A team lead covers one team
Then there are several teams
Each with its own lead and its own product manager
And an Engineering Manager appears above them
14. Four things without which an EM does not work
What an Engineering Manager needs to know and do
Engineering skills and practices — the base from being an engineer
Understanding the business: why this team exists
Understanding how to build delivery processes
Understanding how to work with people
15. What an Engineering Manager should read
Five links from the talk
The talk «Growing a team by an order of magnitude»
The article «Recommendations for technical leaders»
A review of «The Art of Leadership»
Articles on acquisition and on products and projects
16. 04. CTO
What comes after the Engineering Manager
17. Three things at the level of the whole company
What a CTO needs to know and do
Build Technical Leadership across the company
Organize how a large number of teams interact
…for instance with the Team Topologies approach
Build the company's technology strategy
18. In large companies the role fans out into three
What the CTO role looks like in large companies
All-in-one CTO → CIO, CTO, VP of Engineering
For us the CIO sits above the verticals
Insurance IT, investments IT, SME IT, infrastructure
Each with its own CTO and Head of delivery
19. What a CTO should read
Six links from the talk
«A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility»
Reviews of «Team Topologies» in three parts
«Technology Strategy Patterns» and «The Art of Leadership»
«Digital Transformation Game Plan» and the mobile bank article
20. 05. The roles and the organizational lifecycle
Where all of this lands
21. Every stage of the organization has its own characteristics
How these roles map onto the organizational lifecycle
The S-curve: Startup, Growth, Maturity, Decline
With turning points between the stages
Maturity holds two stages, not one
And decline has its own four symptoms
22. The role changes with the scale of the organization
What to take with you
Past Senior the path forks into team and tech
Team lead, EM and CTO are scales, not rungs
Each role has its own set of things to be good at
In large companies the CTO splits into three roles
And the scale itself follows the company's lifecycle stage
23. Thank you!
polomodov.tech
All slides and links are in the Telegram channel
Alexander Polomodov, Technical Director & Fellow, T-Technologies
@book_cube