My secret for growing from engineer to CTO

I wouldn’t be where I am without doing THIS!

Intro

Through many mistakes and some wins in my career, I would say that I am happy with how my career has progressed. Even though my career may seem to be linear to the people looking at my LinkedIn profile (Software Engineer → Senior Software Engineer → Team Lead → Engineering Manager → Head of Engineering → VP of Engineering → CTO).

It wasn’t exactly the case.

There were a whole lot of ups and downs and many learning experiences. My progression is a LOT far from linear. Looking at some mistakes I made, I smile at them now and sometimes I can’t believe I made some of them. As it is so clear to me now what would the better approach be.

But I kept on going and striving to progress.

Did I know I wish to grow to the CTO role when I started my career?

No, it was something that I never even thought would be possible for me. As I started my career as a self-taught engineer, I often felt the imposter syndrome compared to other engineers who had more experience or had degrees in computer science.

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