What Does It Mean To Be A Chief Technology Officer?

The following is a guest article by Alberto Betella, a Web & Mobile Solutions Architect, currently serving as the CTO of @Badiapp. He holds a PhD in Affective Computing & Adaptive Systems (ICT) and organizes the CTOs & Co Meetup group in Barcelona.

Last month, Albert conducted a study of CTOs in Barcelona. Since then, 50 Barcelona-based Chief Technology Officers completed the survey which offers a great sneak peek into the role of the CTO within an organization.

CTOs are not just talented engineers, they also typically wear many hats within a given organization, such as product owner, recruiter, negotiator, orchestrator, tech evangelist, and this list goes on and on. So…

What does it really mean to be a Chief Technology Officer?

We asked 50 CTOs to find out. Here’s what we have learned:

CTOs uncovered — Infographic based on a sample of 50 CTOs working in Barcelona (Spain)

Perhaps the most surprising result we found is a direct correlation (r=.43, p=.015) between the work-life balance of CTOs and their satisfaction with software used for AGILE methodologies (e.g. Jira &co). In other words, individuals who are not happy with the software they are using to manage tasks and track their team’s development progress are also not satisfied with their work-life balance.

Can the lack of a good project management software really influence the personal life of a CTO?

Summing up, we can draw the following conclusions:

CTOs

Work overtime (but do not get paid overtime);
Are happy with their career, yet not so much with their salary
Directly manage more than 10 people on average, and very often do not have a VP of engineering;
Are neither satisfied working with recruiters, nor using the most common recruiting tools;
Like to use hybrid mobile technologies, as opposed to native platforms;
Adopt AGILE methodologies for software development but are not particularly content with the tools they are using (and their personal life is negatively influenced by that!)

Our data was collected from a sample of CTOs based in Barcelona (Spain), who regularly participate at our local meetups. Results may vary according to geographical location. For instance, the gross annual income of a CTO in US is roughly double than that in Spain.

Salaries aside,

Do you think the aforementioned insights can also be applied to other cities and countries?

If you are a CTO and want to contribute to our study, fill out our questionnaire (~3 minutes). We will release an updated version of our infographic with new insights from different cities and countries as they become available.