Can You Become a CTO? Not sure what is required for a CTO position? This state of confusion is
common in the tech industry due to a lack of detailed and up-to-date information.
So, to address this, we reverse-engineered the job descriptions provided by employers for the
CTO position to find out the key patterns and skills one needs for the role today.
For this analysis, we have extracted close to 150 job ads from various job boards in the USA.
Unlike our previous analyses on other popular career paths, this one is going to be a little
unusual, as CTO is more of an Executive role. And, although it is a known fact that a CTO
would be more hands-on in technical operations of an organization, it is challenging to present
the ideal technologies required for CTO because every company has its own specific requirements.
Nevertheless, there are quite a few non-technical skills that are listed as crucial by almost all
companies. And, hopefully, by the end of this video, you will have a clear idea of what you
need to kick-start your career as a CTO. As part of this analysis, we did our best
to find the answers to the most important questions every aspiring CTO needs to know.
1. What are the companies with more openings? 2. Which are the locations with
a higher concentration of job offers? 3. What education is expected for a CTO role?
4. What is the ideal experience required for a CTO role?
5. What are the skills a typical CTO should possess?
If any of the above questions are on your mind, stay tuned because you’ll
find the answers by the end of this video. But before we jump into the actual analysis,
let's quickly define the role itself. Who is a CTO?
If we search through Wikipedia, we will see that a CTO is the highest technology executive
position within a company that leads the technology or engineering department.
To define the role in our own terms, CTO stands for Chief Technology Officer.
A CTO usually handles all the technical related aspects of the organization and guides other
employees in developing the right products or technology that serves the organization needs.
Alright! Now that you’re familiar with the definition of the role,
let’s jump in to see what we have found while analyzing the data from the CTO job descriptions.
Starting with… companies. Our data shows that there are
most openings in Microsoft at the moment, followed by the Federal Reserve bank.
Overall, there are very few openings company-wise. But this makes perfect
sense since multiple openings for a CTO role in a single company is very rare.
In terms of company types, almost 33% of the job offers are from large-scale companies with
more than 10,000+ employees. What makes an impression, however, is that there are some
considerable offers from small-scale organizations as well, which indicates that an increasing number
of startups are currently looking for CTO’s. What about industries?
It is easy to spot that the largest number of openings belong to the Financial services
and Information Technology industries. But these are far from the only options,
as there are considerable openings under the Healthcare and Education industries, too.
Next in our analysis comes location. State-wise, we can easily draw the
following conclusions from the data at hand: First, the majority of openings for CTO
positions are in California and New York Second, there is a significant number of
openings from Washington and Virginia states. So, it’s safe to say you now know which flight to book
if you’re aiming for the CTO title. To narrow things down, let’s take a look
at the cities with the most CTO offers at the moment. Currently, the best opportunities are
undisputedly in New York City. However, don’t rule out San Francisco and Redmond, as data suggests
they offer a reasonable number of openings, too. Okay. We have mapped out the best industries,
companies, and locations to consider if you have set your sight on the CTO role. So, now
it’s time to take a good look at the education, experience, and skills required by employers.
Let’s begin with education. What degree do you need to fulfill the CTO position?
According to the data, almost 50% of job offers mentioned Bachelor as the required degree for
the CTO position. However, the Master's Degree is mentioned in almost the same
number of offers as Bachelors, so that might be a trend worth following up in the future
On the other hand, very few companies are expecting Ph.D. candidates for the CTO position,
probably because business acumen and experience are considered more
important for that dynamic role. What about specialization?
Well, the majority of the companies have listed Computer Science as the preferred
educational background for CTO. Other more prominent fields of concentration
include Mathematics, EE, and Statistics. And we’ve got you covered. We developed the
‘3-6-5 Data Science Program’ to help people of all backgrounds enter the field of data science,
machine learning, and data analytics. We have trained more than 500,000 people around the
world and are committed to continue doing so. If you are interested to learn more,
you can find a link in the description that will also give you a special offer on all of our plans.
Back to our topic, let’s talk about the experience you need to become a CTO.
Since CTO is more of an Executive role, companies are looking for experienced candidates.
On average, the overall Industry experience expected for a CTO position is 10+ years. Besides,
candidates with relevant experience in senior roles of 7+ years are preferred by the companies.
Alright. It’s time to dive into the practical aspect of the CTO role – skills.
Our research outlined 6 distinct categories: programming languages, front end technologies,
other technologies/tools, domain knowledge, soft skills, and communication skills.
Let’s start with Programming Languages. As we pointed out earlier, it is been
a little difficult to find the default technical skills for a CTO role. Instead,
we identified the current trends, that is, the most mentioned skills by companies. In that case,
these are Net(C#), Java, SQL, and Javascript. Continuing with front-end technologies,
2 trends jump off the page: First, it is observed that
front end technologies are mentioned in a good number of openings. This adds up,
as these days, most of the small-scale companies are interested in building web-based products.
And, second, Angular, ReactJS, and NodeJs are mentioned in quite a few openings.
When it comes to other Technologies and Tools, companies need candidates that are well-aware
of the currently popular technologies like Machine learning, Saas, and Devops. AWS and Azure are also
mentioned in a few offers as cloud technologies are trending in the industry these days.
Naturally, companies are expecting the candidates to know about certain domains
as this helps them build the right products to satisfy customer needs.
So, in tune with the latest developments and trends in business and economics, Healthcare and
Finance are mentioned in quite a few job offers. That said, the technical aspect of the CTO job
is only half of what it takes to move up the ladder and become one.
In fact, soft skills are probably the most important skills for a CTO position.
Most of the companies are looking to recruit candidates with strong
leadership qualities in managing the employees. What’s more, many companies are expecting the
candidates for a CTO role to be experts in the design and architecture of the products.
Strategic thinking and an innovative mindset are some of the most prized qualities
and are in huge demand for the role. Finally, as we approach the end of the
list of qualities a CTO needs to possess, we shouldn’t forget that communication skills
and soft skills go hand in hand. As a CTO, you are bound to interact
with various teams and other leaders in the organization. So, top communication skills
are a must. Our data confirm that with more than 50% of companies requiring communication skills.
Now, you’ve got a good idea about the skills and education required to become a CTO.
To recap, this is more of a role-oriented job. So, if you have good knowledge in any domain
and front-end technologies, prior experience in a senior role, and you’re capable of handling
an organization with good leadership qualities, then you stand a fairly high chance to get an
interview call for the CTO position. If you have any doubts or suggestions,
feel free to leave them in the comments. We are happy to help. Cheers!