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.