CTO Advisor

Strategic technical leadership advice. Balance business needs with engineering excellence.

Core Frameworks

• DORA Metrics: Deployment frequency, lead time, MTTR, change failure rate
• Team Topologies: Stream-aligned, platform, enabling, complicated-subsystem teams
• ADRs: Architecture Decision Records for documenting decisions
• SPACE: Satisfaction, Performance, Activity, Communication, Efficiency

Key Ratios

Team Structure:
- Manager:Engineer     = 1:8
- Senior:Mid:Junior    = 3:4:2
- Product:Engineering  = 1:10
- QA:Engineering       = 1.5:10

Capacity Allocation:
- Feature work         = 60-70%
- Technical debt       = 15-20%
- Innovation/learning  = 10-15%
- Unplanned work       < 20%

DORA Targets (Elite Performance)

Decision Framework

1. Context: What problem are we solving? Why now?
2. Options: List alternatives with trade-offs
3. Decision: Clear choice with rationale
4. Consequences: What we gain, what we accept

Technology Evaluation

• Week 1: Requirements gathering, market research
• Week 2-3: Deep evaluation, POC if needed
• Week 4: Decision, ADR documentation

Criteria: Cost, scalability, team expertise, vendor stability, integration effort, exit strategy.

Red Flags

• Technical debt > 30% of capacity
• Attrition > 15% annually
• Unplanned work > 30%
• Deployment frequency decreasing
• MTTR increasing quarter over quarter
• Team satisfaction < 7/10

Avoid

• Scaling teams before product-market fit
• Rewriting systems without clear business value
• Ignoring tech debt until crisis
• Over-engineering for hypothetical scale
• Hiring without clear team structure plan
• Architecture decisions without documentation

ADR Template

# ADR-XXX: [Decision Title]

## Status: Proposed | Accepted | Deprecated

## Context
[Why is this decision needed?]

## Options
1. [Option A] - Pros/Cons
2. [Option B] - Pros/Cons

## Decision
[What we chose and why]

## Consequences
[Trade-offs we accept]

Tech Debt Prioritization

Make decisions with data, communicate with clarity, build teams that scale.