He has been in the software development industry for over 20 years. He is now a CTO in his company for 5 years.
We talked about many things. But I will focus only on one very important topic that most good developers suffer in their lifetime at least once. That is… Good developers are often so humble that they don’t even know how to take credit for their work. They think their work will talk for themselves.
He talked brutally about “this” ignorance of good developers.
Why some great devs don’t get what they deserve
We discussed why some great developers don’t get their deserved recognition or financial benefits, and sometimes, some mediocre devs achieve more than the good ones.
He gave me one last tip. If I ever want to have a career in a management role, like CTO in the future, I must emphasize more on “taking credits” from the beginning of my career. He said being humble or modest is overrated and it would not do me any good for my career.
I don’t really know if any of this is true, or what the context is. Maybe this is how it is in American Corporate culture, but it’s not really how I experienced it.
If you’re a beginner programmer, sure, you can brag about how cool your code is, and how much you’ve build. But if at some point you become a lead developer and you’re still doing that, it seems kinda toxic.
As lead developer in the standup or reports I’d usually downplay what I did - like instead of saying “I build this cool new feature” - present it as “The backend team build this cool new feature”. If someone else build something cool, I would specific say something like “Bob build a really cool feature”
I must emphasize more on “taking credits” from the beginning of my career. He said being humble or modest is overrated and it would not do me any good for my career.
A good Team Lead or CTO needs a good team, and the team usually appreciates it a lot more if you’re spreading the credits around instead of taking them for yourself.
Besides that, a random developer in a big company is very unlikely to just become the CTO by not being humble. If you want to become a CTO, you either join a startup or start your own company
@Aboel3z@programming.dev do you plan on ever interacting with the community or do you post your links to drive Medium engagement?
The last post I commented this on has been deleted. I will say this is the first article I’ve seen that wasn’t under your normal byline; given the comparable writing style it kinda seems like it’s still your article.
Lack of any information about the credentials of this CTO feels incredibly misleading. If this was a CTO of a decent sized organization known for a healthy developer dynamic, I’d have assumed that would have been stated… as any sized company from 1 to 100,000+ can have a CTO. You can file a LLC right now and become a CTO.
Bluntly, a lot of projects just aren’t high profile or important enough to get recognition regardless of skill, and I think this comes down to luck. I’ve known some very smart people who were put on menial work and didn’t advance. I’ve known some average people on very visible projects get rewarded more.
I think it’s better to work towards highly visible projects with a good chance of success than trying to gloat about work.
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I don’t really know if any of this is true, or what the context is. Maybe this is how it is in American Corporate culture, but it’s not really how I experienced it.
If you’re a beginner programmer, sure, you can brag about how cool your code is, and how much you’ve build. But if at some point you become a lead developer and you’re still doing that, it seems kinda toxic.
As lead developer in the standup or reports I’d usually downplay what I did - like instead of saying “I build this cool new feature” - present it as “The backend team build this cool new feature”. If someone else build something cool, I would specific say something like “Bob build a really cool feature”
A good Team Lead or CTO needs a good team, and the team usually appreciates it a lot more if you’re spreading the credits around instead of taking them for yourself.
Besides that, a random developer in a big company is very unlikely to just become the CTO by not being humble. If you want to become a CTO, you either join a startup or start your own company
@Aboel3z@programming.dev do you plan on ever interacting with the community or do you post your links to drive Medium engagement?
The last post I commented this on has been deleted. I will say this is the first article I’ve seen that wasn’t under your normal byline; given the comparable writing style it kinda seems like it’s still your article.
Lack of any information about the credentials of this CTO feels incredibly misleading. If this was a CTO of a decent sized organization known for a healthy developer dynamic, I’d have assumed that would have been stated… as any sized company from 1 to 100,000+ can have a CTO. You can file a LLC right now and become a CTO.
Bluntly, a lot of projects just aren’t high profile or important enough to get recognition regardless of skill, and I think this comes down to luck. I’ve known some very smart people who were put on menial work and didn’t advance. I’ve known some average people on very visible projects get rewarded more.
I think it’s better to work towards highly visible projects with a good chance of success than trying to gloat about work.