> A CxO doesn’t want to talk to a sales engineer who is not technical. They want to speak to someone on their level
Well, yes. That's why you invent a CxO position (Chief Sales Officer?) or maybe "VP of Engineering" for it.
Or you can do the reverse, "CTO" can be a de-facto CSO, and you can have a separate CxO position for the technical stuff.
> I’m not in sales. I am the first deep technical person that a customer talks to (consulting).
This means that you're in sales :)
I think the distinction here matters. CTO is a more inwards-facing position, they are responsible for formulating and executing the technical plans and maintaining the quality of the product.
In other words:
CEO - "we need to get the city of San Francisco as our customer"
CSO - "San Francisco needs a bridge"
CTO - "we can build a cable-stayed bridge across the Golden Gate"
Tech Lead - "we can use 1 meter cross-section cable stays to construct a cable-stayed bridge across the Golden Gate"
In reality, especially in startups, there's always going to be some level of responsibility sharing.
There's nothing wrong with working in sales! No kink shaming here.
Startups usually require people to wear several hats at once. That's normal. But suppose that your company grows to be 20 times larger. Would you still be working with customers or directing the projects to implement their requirements?
I’m far from the only staff level consultant at the company. Doing requirement analysis is considered “leading a project”. It’s a billable project assigned to a staff level consultant once sales brings in a customer and usually last 3-5 weeks.
While I’m considered a specialist for “cloud native applications”, I can pinch hit for almost any of our specialties at this level except for migrations.
Once the customer accepts the proposal, then leading the implementation is considered another project that is assigned to a staff level consultant. The “architects” (non staff) are the specialists that lead their “work stream” and are hands on and leading their sub team depending on the size of the work.
An implementation is made up of multiple work streams (epics).
Well, yes. That's why you invent a CxO position (Chief Sales Officer?) or maybe "VP of Engineering" for it.
Or you can do the reverse, "CTO" can be a de-facto CSO, and you can have a separate CxO position for the technical stuff.
> I’m not in sales. I am the first deep technical person that a customer talks to (consulting).
This means that you're in sales :)
I think the distinction here matters. CTO is a more inwards-facing position, they are responsible for formulating and executing the technical plans and maintaining the quality of the product.
In other words:
CEO - "we need to get the city of San Francisco as our customer"
CSO - "San Francisco needs a bridge"
CTO - "we can build a cable-stayed bridge across the Golden Gate"
Tech Lead - "we can use 1 meter cross-section cable stays to construct a cable-stayed bridge across the Golden Gate"
In reality, especially in startups, there's always going to be some level of responsibility sharing.