CTO that doesn’t write code

In Quora, many ask whether someone might get to the CTO chair without writing code. Most of the answers are an absolute NO. However, as someone who has done exactly that, I feel compelled to tell you my career story. Hold tight, because this is going to be a long one.

I studied industrial engineering, and one of the harder courses is “software design.” I still remember squeaking my teethes while I worked on the C++ code for homework (and I finished my studies ten years ago!). We studied object-oriented design. That’s the whole coding experience I had in my whole adult life (except some python and Matlab code I wrote while studying the machine-learning basics).

When I finished my first degree, I started to serve as an officer in the IDF. Most of the work I did in the eight years that followed was writing requirement documents for products that HR quarter needed and technical project management. In those years, I learned a lot of things, but the two major ones where:

1- Visualising dreams into systems. I was able to hear someone and see before my eyes the kind of DB, processes, and code that will be needed in order to make his dream come true.

2- There’s nothing in the world that put chains on you, except your own mind. You can achieve absolutely anything, and anything is negotiable. You might ask yourself how I learned that in such a strict place like the IDF — and I will tell you that in the middle of this hierarchy organisation I was able to see that there’s so much flexibility.

After finishing the IDF phase, I started a post as a business analyst at service company named Ngsoft. Already used to writing the technical spec and managing developers until we reach delivery, I became the team leader in just a few months. My main career shift came with the unbelievable offer — to manage the R&D department. I got the call with the offer while I was at maternity leave (with my third son). It was mind-blowing and I seriously doubted my ability to manage developers, because I never developed myself. But, obviously, I accepted the challenge :)

The next phase begins today, as I took the rule of Co-Founder and CTO (read more here) — and studied the art of react-native and began the amazing journey of an entrepreneur.