In all the companies I have worked with, one of the key questions is “what role should we give to the technical founder?” Actually, this SHOULD be one of the key, well thought out questions…but it’s not.

Fundamentally, these are completely different roles requiring very different types of personalities. But, either because one is perceived as more prestigious, or because companies say they “need” a VP Engineering more than a CTO, the wrong choice is made for the wrong reasons.

The roles differ in focus, and therefore in the style and skills needed. Although both are technical leadership roles, the focus for the CTO is more technical and the focus is more leadership for the VP. Essentially, the CTO is the “technical guru” for the company. He will be focused on pushing the edges of what the technology should be capable of. He will focus long term, will work either alone or with “advanced technology” folks, and will not have a large role in the day-to-day activities of the company. His skills should be in technical vision, competitive understanding, and the ability to think strategically about how to expand the company’s competitive technological advantage. His contacts will primarily be external to the company.

In contrast, the VP Engineering needs to have good political and management skills. His focus will be on creating and managing against the schedule for the current product. He will be filling out and managing a team, and putting the process and discipline in place to help that team perform and scale. He will need to establish and maintain good relationships across functions in the company. By necessity, most people who choose an engineering management track sacrifice their ability to stay on the “cutting edge” technologically.

Clearly, then, it should be easy to tell whether your founder is better suited for a technical role or a management role. However, most founders initially fill both roles and are then either reluctant to give one up, or they believe the VP Engineering role is more critical and mainstream, so they hold onto it. This is seldom the right answer for them, or for the company. Then someone like me has to come in and help facilitate a transition that is all the more painful because it never needed to happen.