CTO vs CAO vs VP of Engg

Roles and Responsibilities - A conclusion

 It’s hard to differentiate CAO, CTO, VP role and responsibilities in an Org. To summarize, the CAO, CTO, and VP of Engineering have responsibilities that overlap, but it really depends on the organization, and how the CIO views the responsibilities.

 Just for understanding, analysed these roles and trying to differentiate these roles in terms of responsibilities/accountabilities in a IT a company and its importance as well. Those who looking on these roles/position please have evaluate themselves that you fit for this role or not.

 The Chief Technology Officer (#CTO) CTO positions varies with the company. In some companies, the CTO is an individual contributor, and their main job is to understand everything that is truly “technical” within the organization, and to learn what future technologies will move the company forwards. In some organizations, the CTO is the liaison between the IT org and the business. In some orgs, the CTO is responsible for the budgeting decisions in the IT organization. Each company defines the responsibilities of their executive level differently.

The CTO focuses on the long term vision, the architecture and the communication towards the business executives, media and third party stakeholders and should be knowledgeable in as many technologies, architectural styles, design patterns, coding best practices, development environments and methodologies as possible.

The CTO is essentially take technical decisions in an organization and has multiple strengths; being an architect, a researcher, a tester, a master coder and much more. It is imperative that the CTO realizes the vision of the company and can actualize it through tech.

o  Manages the day-to-day Organisational /Business/Sales/Media activities

o   Sets long-term goals, strategies, budgets and tech culture

o  Communicates technical concepts to non-technical business people and prospective customers

o   Makes sure all current businesses are on track.

o   Initiate technology inventions and partnering with external Tech Forums

 A CTO reports to the CEO

The Chief Architect Officer (#CAO) role is one of the hardest to define, just because every company wants their Chief Architect Officer to do different things. Personally, I think that the Chief Architect Officer should be one of the most technically-competent people in the entire company. They should be hands-on, and not “ivory tower”. The Chief Architect has a horizontal role, responsible for the technology and integration roadmap for the entire organization (or line-of-business). The CAO looks for opportunities to bring in new technology, to reduce duplication within the organization, to provide a roadmap for the entire company to move forward. However, the CAO does NOT have responsibilities for the delivery of the products. That is really left up to the various heads of development, or the VP of Engineering.

A Chief Architect Officer implements the company’s tech vision, and make the overarching software architecture. They would be leading the software, systems, cloud architect team and so on.

At the beginning of a startup’s life cycle, when the resources are scarce and the team is small, the CTO can engulf the responsibilities of the Chief architect officer and the VP. However, for larger firms, these roles are well defined and imperative for tech sustainability and progress to make these distinct roles.

 The CAO reports to and focuses on the details of a subset of a CTO technical vision, namely the decision process (research, proof of concepts, software prototyping, compatibility tests and analysis, etc.) of and software development compliance to the overarching software architecture. As a leadership role component he/she would also usually lead the software/systems/infrastructure/cloud architect teams.

o   Designs the overall architecture of the company's product line,

o   Sets the details of the technical policy when it comes to code, making sure    all code meets business and quality goals.

o   Decision making on suitable technologies/tools and check vulnerable free software and its licenses

o   Makes sure all pieces work together and meet all the requirements/objectives

o   Introduce new technologies and inventions on tool process and catalyst/enable other stakeholders in a Org.

 A CAO again reports to the CTO./CEO

The VP of Engineering (#VP) is responsible for the day-to-day delivery of the product. They should be intimately familiar with the day-to-day status of the various projects, should help unblock any roadblocks, should work with the Chief Architect Officer to decide on and implement new technologies, etc.

The VP Engineering would be the supervisor of the tech staff and will do this by being a good manager and a team builder. The person’s tech skills are not as important as their recruitment and communication skills. They are focused on the tasks of internal delivery, keeping the team moving. More often than not.

The VP Engineering reports to and focuses on the details of a subset of a CTO technical vision, namely the development and delivery process. This also include people management. That means hiring, keeping and growing the best talent. Organising the structure of the department. Overseeing programs/projects status, budgets etc.

 o   Manages the day-to-day development tasks within the company

o   Sets short and medium-term goals, budgets and team structure.

o   Makes sure all current projects are on track.

o   Initiate delivery activities on team /cross depts

 A VP reports to the CTO/CEO.