There are two paths to CTO: start a company and choose between CEO or CTO, or become a founding engineer who ships fast MVPs. Don't try to do both CEO and CTO long-term. Pick the role that matches your strengths.
Are you wondering how you can become a CTO? There is really not one and the only way to become one, but there are some common patterns. Let's go to the first one. Start a company. If you start a company, you either do it alone or with a co-founder or more of them. If you do it alone, then you will need to eventually make a decision. Either you are going to be focusing on tech or you will find someone who is going to do that. In the long run, it's almost impossible to be the CEO plus CTO combined. If you see yourself more on the business side, then the CEO is the right choice for you. But if you wish to focus more on tech, then you should get a co-founder. Let's go to the second strategy: become a founding engineer. This is especially for someone who is good at building MVPs. It's not so important that the code is the most clean or well structured, but speed is very important. If the product has found the fit, you would potentially be a candidate for the CTO role. To learn more, you can subscribe to my newsletter. It's called Engineering Leadership, where I share similar tips and advice on how to be a great engineering leader.
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