Your CTO Should Actually Be Technical

Technical leadership loses its edge when a CTO or VPE drifts away from hands-on expertise. Deep technical skill is the only way to distinguish good from great across hiring, system design, and daily trade-offs. It gives leaders the authority to set quality standards and push back when deadlines threaten core stability.

The piece lays out five reasons for this stance. First, technical judges can evaluate code quality and architecture without blind spots. Second, they can calculate the cost of speed versus robustness, a cornerstone of sound decision-making. Third, they command respect because teams know the leader could step in and fix the bug themselves. Fourth, passionate technologists inspire their engineers to exceed expectations. Fifth, highly technical leaders attract similarly skilled talent, avoiding the mismatch of great people-managers who lack depth.

A concrete example from Dropbox illustrates the point. As the desktop client grew, bugs surged. A technical deep-dive revealed that the architecture was close to its breaking point. Rebuilding it would take six to nine months, but the CTO's clear, data-driven argument won executive support. The rebuild moved the "Red Line" for quality further away, enabling the team to ship faster without compromising stability.

The article ends with a hard recommendation: the CTO/VPE interview should include a rigorous coding and system-design test. Technical chops are not optional; they are the foundation for effective leadership, reliable trade-offs, and a culture that attracts the best engineers.