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Founding Engineer vs. CTO, who is the right one for your startup? 🤓

Dan
3 replies
I'm writing a newsletter, and this is this week's topic, and I'd like to hear the views of people in the industry and spark a discussion about whether a CTO in the early days makes more sense. https://generalistengineer.substack.com/p/why-your-startup-needs-a-founding

Replies

Philippe Gagnon
Waverly
Waverly
I would say it depends! :) I would go for the person, you need a flexible person able to do different tasks. Whether it's a CTO who can do engineering or an engineer with leadership skills.
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Krishna Kumar
If there is more than one developer in the team, then you need a leader for the developers. If the IT work is a substantial part of your USP, and you are building a complex system, then architecting it, choosing the right stacks, optimising the costs, etc will not be easy without substantial experience. Having some one who has this background will be of immense benefit to the startup. If this is a handson coder, then it is a double benefit. But often you do not get that combination. So, a CTO level founder would be well worth it.
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