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🚀 #1 2022by Stephan SchmidtHappy 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 MarketRecently 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 ArticlesCode 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 weekThis 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. 
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