When you’re a ~linear developer (regardless of seniority level) working on tasks and issues without time limits, you only know your own craft and seal every hole the boat may theoretically have. But when you see the whole business picture, and how dynamic it is, or when that is pushed down to you chaotically and unfiltered, i.e. not reworded as your CTO+ would do carefully, the anxiety of vagueness and indecision may come in. E.g. there is a feature which has to be done “yesterday” and “will probably live for only few months”, so it’s obvious to just hack it into the code. But as a tech guy you know all the implications of this way in the future. But as a CTO or a guy who sees more, you also feel this “yesterday need”. These two facts usually mix together into shitty trade-offs, shitty side being pushed from other CxOs.
If this seems to be the case, the solution is to care less of that chaos and care more of your developer’s craft, which you seem to still have more affinity to. It is your role. Push the anxiety back to where it belongs by doing/planning things the right-most possible way and negotiating it to the forces which drive it ahead “like crazy”.
There is a balance between growing like crazy and turning all limbs into cancerous tumors. You may find peace of mind in finding it and messaging it back to where imbalances originate from.
I would ask myself in this positon what do I want as a pro (hard one), whose responsibilities I take on me without profiting from it (not only money-wise), make it clear what will happen to me, to the company and to the next guy if I just leave, what are both good and bad sides of how things work now, think which points of that list should be fixed, which should be added, in the circumstances, and evaluate possible outcomes. I mean not which I can “live with” today, but which should [not] be there strategically. And finally, I’d detect the source(s) of trouble and message them publicly-directly about the structured issues from that board. It’s a huge reflective/collective work, which would serve good both me and the company.
If this seems to be the case, the solution is to care less of that chaos and care more of your developer’s craft, which you seem to still have more affinity to. It is your role. Push the anxiety back to where it belongs by doing/planning things the right-most possible way and negotiating it to the forces which drive it ahead “like crazy”.
There is a balance between growing like crazy and turning all limbs into cancerous tumors. You may find peace of mind in finding it and messaging it back to where imbalances originate from.
I would ask myself in this positon what do I want as a pro (hard one), whose responsibilities I take on me without profiting from it (not only money-wise), make it clear what will happen to me, to the company and to the next guy if I just leave, what are both good and bad sides of how things work now, think which points of that list should be fixed, which should be added, in the circumstances, and evaluate possible outcomes. I mean not which I can “live with” today, but which should [not] be there strategically. And finally, I’d detect the source(s) of trouble and message them publicly-directly about the structured issues from that board. It’s a huge reflective/collective work, which would serve good both me and the company.