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IT Director: The Role, the Reality, and a Readiness System to Earn It
How to move from IT Manager to IT Director across software-first and asset-heavy industries. Most people describe the IT Director as if it’s a software organization role: backlogs, agile rituals, dev velocity, maybe a bit of cloud. In reality, the hardest IT Director jobs are often in places where software isn’t the product, yet downtime,…
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7 CV/LinkedIn Mistakes That Scream “Great Engineer, Not Ready to Lead”
Most leadership candidates don’t have a skill gap but a signal gap. These are, effectively, patterns that down-rank you for Tech Lead/EM/Head roles. In this quick guide, we’ll briefly explain the 7 most common mistakes and provide fixes that translate your work into scope, influence, and outcomes. If your career map leads to senior technology…
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Engineering Manager Promotion Readiness Checklist: The 9-Signal Scorecard for Senior Leadership
Stop guessing what ‘senior-ready’ means. Score yourself across 9 executive competencies, then turn gaps into a 30–60 day plan. Here’s the simplest way to think about an engineering manager promotion: your title changes when senior leaders can trust you with outcomes they’re accountable for. Not effort. Not hours. Just four outcomes: revenue, cost, risk, and…
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How to Map Your IT Career Path (and Stay Layoff-Resilient in the AI Era)
Here’s the uncomfortable truth about your IT career path up front: the old way of “working hard, getting promoted every few years, and eventually landing a senior title” no longer works in tech. Over the last few years — and especially in 2025 — we’ve watched wave after wave of layoffs, hiring freezes, and quiet…
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How to Adapt and Stay Relevant in a Shifting Tech Job Market
Every week, CTO Academy hosts live sessions and debates with seasoned technology leaders and career coaches. Members can ask questions and get immediate answers from experts. Last month, one of our sessions looked at the major shift in tech job market trends. Our guests, CTO Sean Handley, founder of London CTOs Barry Cranford, and career…
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What’s Wrong With Your CTO Resume & How to Fix It
In one of our most recent online sessions, we discussed the troubling trends in the tech job market, especially in the technology leadership category (e.g., CTO, fCTO, Head of IT, etc.). In some instances, it can take up to 18 months to land the executive role. While the shifts in the market are partially responsible,…
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Salary Expectations for Technology Leadership Programs Graduates
Advancing from a software engineering role to a leadership position in technology significantly boosts your earning potential. While pursuing a master’s degree from a technology leadership program isn’t mandatory for the transition to a management role, the lack of technology leadership education can add years to achieving such career goals. By contrast, obtaining a Tech…
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Chief Product & Technology Officer (CPTO) Role and Responsibilities
What if a product team and its CPO advocate one technology stack but the engineering team and its CTO another? What if the lines between product and technology are completely blurred, like in organisations that offer purely tech-based products? The solution to both predicaments is often a new breed of leader: the Chief Product and…
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Mastering the CTO Interview Questions
This article dives deep into the CTO interview questions. It is a summary of a live session with Richard Weaver, an expert recruiter who started his HR career in the late 1980s, placing over 1000 candidates into roles in organisations of all shapes and sizes. The purpose of this guide is to show both perspectives:…
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CTO Network: Finding & Navigating Your Ideal Community of Tech Leaders
The recovery speed in case of a major system meltdown will depend on your experience. If that experience voids, there’s only one place you can go to get immediate hands-on assistance: your CTO network. What do you do, for instance, if you must upgrade your technology stack or improve your operations but have no experience…
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CTO Bonus Structure Overview w/ Influencing Factors
In this article, we explained a typical CTO bonus structure and types in different company sizes with the detailed overview of influencing factors.
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Field CTO Job Description w/ Salary Breakdown & Career Prospects
In this post, we explain the relatively new Field CTO role and how it differs from a more traditional Chief Technology Officer role. We will see how a Field CTO job description determines the type of person suitable for the job. We will take a look at the job prospects and, of course, the average…
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IT Manager: Role, Responsibilities, Skills and Average Salary
An IT Manager (a.k.a Information Technology Manager) oversees and manages IT operations, systems and infrastructure. Additionally, they serve as a connection between technology strategies and the broader goals of the organisation. As such, they a) ensure the efficient, secure operation of IT resources and b) nurture the overarching objectives of the business. Common types of…
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CTO Job Description with Responsibilities, Qualifications and Salary Breakdown
In this post, we explain a CTO job description on four levels of engagement: start-up, fast-growth company, enterprise and, finally, a Group Chief Technology Officer. You will learn responsibilities on each level, understand desired qualifications and, ultimately, find out what kind of salary you can expect considering the size of your company and industry. TABLE…
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CTO Salary Range in the US and UK: A Comparative Analysis
In this blog post, we explore the CTO salary range; separately for the United States and the United Kingdom. We are examining variations and influencing factors across public and private companies as well as start-ups, fast-growth firms and large enterprises. Additionally, we’ll look into the most common bonus structures of a Chief Technology Officer position….
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CTO vs CPO: Differences, Friction and Transformative Collaboration
Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) and Chief Product Officers (CPOs) are at the heart of most growing companies. Two distinct but closely connected roles that converge technology and innovation. When successful, this synergy becomes a critical success factor harmonising innovation and excellence. In this blog post, we explore both roles and where they intersect. Most importantly,…
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Interim CTO: Responsibilities, Onboarding and Power Transfer Process
An Interim CTO is a temporary executive responsible for overseeing and guiding the company’s technology strategy and operations during a transitional period. Companies hire interim CTOs on a short-term basis, either due to a sudden departure of the previous CTO, a planned leadership change or while searching for a full-time CTO. (Don’t mistake an Interim…
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Practical Solutions to Common Challenges of a Remote CTO Position
In this article, we are a) examining the most critical challenges of the Remote CTO role and, more importantly, b) providing practical solutions.
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The Path to Becoming an Exceptional IT Director: A Comprehensive Guide for Aspiring Technology Leaders
This extensive guide provides aspiring technology leaders, such as software engineers, with valuable insights into the responsibilities, skills, experience and knowledge necessary to embark on a successful journey towards an IT Director role.
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What is a Deputy CTO and How to Become One
Learn what is a Deputy CTO, what the path to becoming one looks like and how to best prepare for a job interview.
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What Makes a Good CTO: Essential Qualities for Technology Leaders
In this blog post, you will learn what makes a good CTO from the perspective of experienced and successful technology leaders and their CEOs.
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4 Ways Chief Technology Officers Get into a Board of Directors
While it is less common for Chief technology officers (CTOs) to directly join a board of directors, there are still several ways they can attain such positions. Starting with the most common and progressing to rarer methods, here are a few most common ways CTOs get seats on boards. 1. Internal Promotion to a Board…
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Part-Time CTO in Today’s Business Landscape: Role & Expectations
A part-time CTO is a technology expert who works on a part-time or consulting basis for a company. The aim is to develop and implement the company’s technology strategy and oversee all aspects of its technology operations and product development.
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Role of a Chief Technology Officer in Different Business Sizes
Generally speaking, the role of a chief technology officer involves strategic management and execution of technology initiatives within an organization. It is, therefore, pivotal in shaping and implementing the technology roadmap while aligning it with the company’s overall goals and vision. What enables tech leaders to drive innovation, oversee development and infrastructure, ensure data security…
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11 Things a CTO Should Never Say to a CEO
The CEO:CTO relationship is often pivotal to an organisation but is not without its challenges and that’s often down to the very different personalities who can typically fill each role.So we had some fun this week when asking our community of global tech leaders for suggestions about what you should avoid saying to the CEO…
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What is a Fractional CTO and How Do You Become One?
A Fractional CTO is a chief technology officer who provides on-demand services to a company or organization. In other words, it is a freelance contract that implies working for a fraction of the time and cost and just on the part of the project as opposed to full- or part-time CTO positions.
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We Need To Talk About The CEO
What does a CTO need from the CEO? What does a CTO think the CEO needs from them?
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4 Reasons You Won’t Get That CTO Job …
What will stop you getting that dream CTO job? Our Head of Careers has some ideas …
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What is the Average CTO Salary in India?
India is an economic powerhouse and the CTO is at the heart of their growth. But what is the average CTO salary in India? How do you improve your market value as CTO?
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7 Steps to Become an Effective CTO
1. Define your vision for your future by setting goals When it comes to setting goals, many people fall victim to the “goal-setting paradox.” This is when a person sets unrealistic or uninspiring goals and then does not follow through with them. It’s important to be careful with what you set your goal as. It…
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Accidental CTO, Reflections on Before and Since
I have tried to detail in this blog specific changes in my role as I took on this new status as CTO and the challenges I personally faced. This week I’ve been reflecting on how my life looked before and since.
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Diary of an Accidental CTO: The Art of Context Switching
As a CTO there’s multiple projects to juggle with on a day-to-day basis so you need to master the art of context switching.
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Early Stage CTOs … Can Be Bad For Your Wealth
CTO Academy looks at why leadership training and support is particularly important for tech leaders in fast growth companies.
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Diary of An Accidental CTO: Team Member to Team Leader
Suddenly as I stepped into a tech leadership role i was facing unknowns where my decisions would impact directly on my team and how effective they and I could be
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Diary of an Accidental CTO: Identify Your Daily Radar
“Identify your daily radar” Another diary instalment from our great friend Mostafa Khattab, based in Dubai and experiencing at first hand the challenges faced by someone dropped into a CTO role ahead of their planned schedule aka The Accidental CTO. For those interested in starting from the beginning, you can find at the footer of…
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Diary of an Accidental CTO: Leadership Mistakes
Mostafa Khattab is CTO at Wakecap Technologies in Dubai. He is sharing with us some of his journey of what we describe as “An Accidental CTO” … aka someone who arrived in the CTO role ahead of schedule and has been grappling with various new challenges and a very steep learning curve.You can catch up with Part…
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What is a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of a Company?
In a general sense, a chief technology officer is a technical leadership role involving many variables: business goals, corporate strategy, team management, technical vision, enterprise systems, and related tasks. But what is a CTO in a nutshell? What is the key responsibility? Without a doubt, a primary responsibility is delivering a technical strategy that is…
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How we manage the CEO: CTO Dynamic
Inspiration for this article arrived via feedback from one of our CTO mentees, who is grappling with the CEO relationship and what he described as a ‘volcanic chief executive’. Most Sunday nights he receives an email from the CEO delivering a barrage of expletive-led criticisms of the senior management team. An extract below [expletives removed…
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Diary of an Accidental CTO, Part 2
Mostafa Khattab is a CTO based in Dubai. This is the 2nd part of his blog about being an ‘Accidental CTO’
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Diary of an Accidental CTO: A Definition
What’s it like being a Start Up CTO? What’s it like being an Accidental CTO?
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Professional Growth : Why It Pays To Be Intentional
What is Professional Growth? The definition of professional growth will be different things for different people but it certainly means more than certificates on the wall. Performance Expert Bill Eckstrom “it’s the development or better use of talents and skills that lead to improved outcomes. This development can take place in many different places –…
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What is a VP of Engineering?
VPs of Engineering are responsible for ensuring that design requirements are met, overseeing the consistency of user experiences, and managing a team of engineers and developers.
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Non Traditional Route to CTO
As most companies are now technical companies roles like the CMO can sometimes have a bigger tech budget than the CTO and it’s more possible than before to achieve senior tech roles via non traditional routes, though it’s highly unusual.
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From Senior Developer to Senior Tech Leader
Many of us have travelled the journey from junior developer to senior developer to tech leader. We know and understand where you’re coming from and where you want to go. It’s why we launched CTO Academy
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Managing the career transition from techie to team lead
The CTO Academy community is not only growing and facilitating the career transition of thousands of tech leaders within the UK, it’s also gone global with customers and contributors from every corner of the world – Guatemala to Sydney, Bangalore to Sao Paulo. But despite a myriad of different countries, companies, roles and responsibilities there…
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The CTO CIO Difference: An in-depth look
Since launching CTO Academy, we’ve received the occasional enquiry from a CIO saying, “hey, what about us …. we want equal rights”or, words to that effect. So we thought it a useful moment, particularly as we have a growing number of CIO subscribers, to look into some of the differences between the CTO and CIO roles….
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DevOps and Road To Tech Leadership
Whilst DevOps is a relatively new role it’s one that allows visibility across the whole operation, making it an excellent route towards achieving senior tech positions.
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The Chief Information Officer – What’s the difference?
The modern and effective CIO needs to build a broad range of management and softer skills that go way beyond traditional expectations of the role.
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Toxic Jobs, Time To Say Go
Toxic cultures are tough to change. Focus your energy instead on what really matters to you, then plan your escape.
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What is the Average CTO Salary in the UK?
The very best tech leaders are certainly in demand lately, but what is the median CTO salary in UK and what does it involve? In this post, we are examining the median salaries of chief technology officers in the United Kingdom with and without compensation packages, and comparing the national average with a few selected…
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From Business Analyst to Tech Leader
Business analysts are responsible for bridging the gap between IT and the business using data analytics.
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What is an Accidental CTO?
An Accidental CTO is someone typically working within an early stage, fast growth company and who has arrived in the senior tech role way ahead of schedule. They face a unique set of leadership challenges.
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Project Manager & The Route To Leadership
the project manager is communicating with engineers, designers, programmers, stakeholders, executive leaders, and decision makers. The whole gamut of people inside a high- tech company.
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Are you an Accidental CTO?
if this were a term included in the Oxford Dictionary of Terms, it might read something like … someone accelerated ahead of schedule into the CTO role rapid promotion of senior software engineer to newly created CTO role ahead of Series A round We coined this phrase in the early days of CTO Academy as…
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Salary vs. Equity vs. Time aka ‘The Start Up Conundrum’
Why do we turn up for work? Why do we burn that midnight hour trying to breath life into an invisible start up? Altruism, the craic or just those (soon to be restricted) free beers from the We Work fridge? Maybe for you it’s some or none of the above but, what it should be…
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What is the CTO Salary in the USA in 2023?
Do you know why some chief technology officers can drive very attractive salary and equity packages while others can’t? This post looks at the average CTO salary in the USA in 2023 across cities, states and organizations, examining the determining factors that affect the bottom line for tech leaders working in US companies. Just to…
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How to become a CTO?
For most C-suite roles there is generally a linear relationship between the skills they develop through their career and the skills required at an executive level. The CMO has been on various marketing courses, the CFO has been mastering a balance sheet for years and the sales director comes from the school of hard cold…
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Some of the realities, About start up salaries
As a rock star developer, what are your career (remuneration) options? An above average salary at investment bank or hedge fund, but with long hours and little controlPublic body where, you earn less, but the hours and benefits (particularly those juicy pensions) are better and more comfortingLarge company where you benefit from the corporate perks…