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The job of CTO (CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER) (M/F)
AChief Technology Officer (CTO) is the person in charge of an organization's technology needs and research and development (R&D).
Also known as the CTO, the CTO is that person who looks at the short and long term needs of an organization, and uses capital to make technology investments designed to help the organization achieve its goals.
The CTO job is one of the most important technology-related positions in a company, as he or she leads the technology or engineering department.
He or she creates development policies around infrastructure and innovation and establishes procedures to improve the company's products and services for external customers.
The role of a Chief Technology Officer is complex and each CTO will have their own specificities to bring to a project.
A good CTO must know how to delegate and supervise his teams, but he is also a manager who must not lose sight of the most daily problems.
They must therefore be able to work on the front line, coding alongside their fellow developers and making decisions that are essential to the company's growth, which they will report directly to their management and the IT department.
The missions
- Define the company's technical strategy in line with the company's vision,
- Establish and track goals and projects using a project management methodology (agile and Scrum being the most popular),
- Ensure the respect of the roadmap and the delivery of products and services,
- Conduct a technical audit to identify underperforming tools or methods and propose solutions to improve them,
- Manage a technical team: developers, project managers, network architects, infrastructure managers, etc.
- Ensure the use of the most appropriate technologies for the company's project and/or team,
- Facilitate relations with other company departments (product team, management, marketing, technical documentation, etc.) and with external service providers (hosting company, subcontractors, etc.),
- Encourage and supporttechnological and technical innovation within the company,
- Participate in thepre-sales phases,
- Report to management.
Skills
- Mastery of common programming languages,
- Mastery of software tools (see toolbox below in this article),
- Prioritization of tasks for roadmap follow-up,
- Technical English,
- Analysis and strength of proposal to justify technological choices,
- Risk analysis,
- Technical project management and cross-functional project management
- Intellectual curiosity to be aware of new methods, new tools or technological innovations,
- Mastery of one or more project management methods (agile, Scrum, Lean).
- Leadership, team spirit, organizational skills
- Rigor, listening, empathy, risk analysis and reactivity.
Developments
The changes in this business are as follows:
- CIO: Director of Information Systems,
- Director of Innovation in a technology services company,
- a general management position.
While this profession is tending to become more feminized (+14% of women developers in Europe between 2013 and 2018 according to the Gender Scan study based on Eurostat data), this progression seems to be slowing down or even declining in France, where the share of women has fallen by 11% in the workforce.
