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Amazing CTO | More happiness and success
🚀 #1 2022

by Stephan Schmidt

Happy Friday,

welcome to the Amazing CTO Newsletter. What did I read and enjoy this week? We have something about the role of the CTO, about location based remote salaries, how it’s a managers job to focus on code reviews and some Mario64 AI Analysis. Read until the end for the book of the week recommendation.

This and more in today’s newsletter.

Good reading, nice weekend and until next week,

Stephan

Job Market

Recently some company wanted to discuss a 350k EUR CTO in Europe role with me that was remote. What’s noteworthy: People looking for CTOs (you knew that already), European prices have increased and people are comfortable paying high salarys for remote top management jobs.

Interesting Articles

Code Ownership, Stewardship, or Free-for-all?

Beside the fact that I think there is something wrong with six developers maintaining fifteen microservices the article about code ownership has some interesting thoughts.

https://bennorthrop.com/Essays/2022/code-ownership-stewardship-or-free-for-all.php

Fifty shades of CTO

Many CTOs are unclear about their role or are bored or stressed and don’t know how their role could change. Read “Fifty shades of CTO” if this concerns you.

https://lau.rent/posts/50-shades-of-cto.html

The Biggest Mistake I See Engineers Make

“Throughout my career, the biggest mistake I see engineers make is doing too much work on their own before looping in others.” Yes. Read. Understand. I argue since decades as a manager you need to tell people when to ask others, when it’s too early and when it is too long.

https://www.thezbook.com/the-biggest-mistake-i-see-engineers-make-2/

Our Vision for Location-Independent Salaries at Buffer

Location based salary has come up as a topic for every CTO with teams becoming more remote, and people moving towards the sun. Buffer shares some insights on how to make location independent salaries work with compensation principles.

https://buffer.com/resources/location-independent-salaries/

Is your website violating GDPR?

GDPR seems to come back every now and then. The GDPR checker gives a rough indication if you’re in hot waters.

https://www.violating-gdpr.com/

Why not hire part-time developers?

Alex Klos muses about the idea of our industry moving to part-time developers in “Why not hire part-time developers?”

https://aklos.substack.com/p/why-not-hire-part-time-developers

Code Review is the Manager’s Job

Aren’t you giving guidance in for code reviews of your developers? John Barton argues there is much more to code reviews than quality. I think if as CTO you do not focus on code review guidance and training you’re missing a great opportunity.

https://hecate.co/blog/code-review-review-is-the-managers-job

Single dependency stacks

Very short, there is another argument for single dependency stacks. For some years I’m now arguing for simplicity in tech stacks, and many coachees struggle after some years of unrestricted technology growth. Worth the read if you still need more convincing.

https://brandur.org/fragments/single-dependency-stacks

Google Workspace security

One thing that often comes up is how to secure developer laptops. Fleet has a good guide to get you started :-) Must read.

https://fleetdm.com/handbook/security#google-workspace-security

Analysing the AI of Super Mario 64 | AI and Games

Finally we have an Analysis of the AI of Mario64 :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fmVyXBr1Z8&t=1s

Book of the week

This weeks book is “Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations” by Robert D. Austin. It’s one of the most underrated books and essential for anyone who is implementing performance measuring systems with goals, so probably all of you.

Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations

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