Can your CTO still code?

Can your CTO still code?

Many chief technology officers study technology, consider different architectures and challenge their team to deliver products and services. The problem with this approach is that many CTOs today no longer maintain application development proficiencies.

The CTO is often at the mercy of many differing opinions within their organization without the important understanding, in some level of depth, the challenges, capabilities or even limitations that certain platforms present.

Worse yet, when a CTO completely relies on the advice of his or her engineers, that advice may simply be based on the preexisting comfort levels of the designers, programmers and architects. When you’re consistently taking the word of others and haven’t maintained enough skill to perform basic discovery for yourself, you, as a CTO, are significantly diluting the power you have in driving true digital transformation for your company.

I joined Kony about six months ago, when I saw their technology, and I knew it was something I not only could stand behind, but something I could extend. Shortly after joining, while in the process of deep diving into strategy, I decided on one important thing — to become as proficient in the platform as I possibly could. I was not going to simply review PowerPoint decks, read white papers or do web research, I was going to dive headfirst into our platform capabilities and learn the skills needed to shape those capabilities into world-class business to enterprise and business-to-consumer solutions.

My full first week of work was spent meeting my teams in Hyderabad, India. The week I returned I was fortunate enough to have an onsite developer boot camp in progress — so I jumped right in. I mean, what could they say, really? I was the CTO — and I would have sat on the floor in the back of the room if I had to.

I think at first they thought I was auditing the class, kind of just testing the water, evaluating our developer education program. Not the case. I was there to learn — side by side with the other developers — both internal and external.

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