Prerequisites: How to excel to chief technology officer
The chief technology officer in any organization is a leader. In most cases, the CTO is hired from within the company, because he already knows most of the business processes, which means less training is involved. CTOs are considered managers, so you must be able to manage people and work with team leads to generate financial and status reports that are later sent to the CEO. The type of CTO usually depends on the business. If the business is an ecommerce store, the CTO handles the public facing website, any internal software, and the technology systems that support financial generation. Some CTOs have MBAs from a university, but you can also look into the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification to help propel your career. For a course syllabus and pricing information on our CISSP training, fill out the form below:
What does a CTO do?
The role of CTO is a newer title created after companies realized that it needed someone to manage IT teams. IT teams can span hundreds of users, and these users support the systems within the company. IT support systems cost businesses thousands of dollars each month, so the CTO is responsible for managing this wide range of hardware and software and report directly to the CEO about any progress or the current status of the systems. The CTO and CIO are usually terms used interchangeably. However, a CTO usually oversees the production of new software and platforms while a CIO typically manages current systems as they interface with users.
How much does a CTO make?
The graph below gives you a range of CTO salaries:
The standard CTO makes about $162,263 each year. This salary is good in many parts of the United States. The salary usually is a base and then the CTO can make more money with stock options, especially if he is a part of a growing startup company. A CTO can “level up” in the company by moving from engineer to manager. For this reason, the CTO’s salary is shown along with a senior engineer salary of $107,000 each year. The salary is also comparable to a senior architect’s salary. The difference is that the architect is still active with construction of new projects and creation of new software where a CTO mostly manages architects. A senior managing architect makes about $150,000 each year. The role of CTO is difficult when you are first starting out in technology, but having your CISSP certificate greatly improves your chances of getting into this career.
