In Quora, many ask whether someone might get to the CTO chair without writing code. Most of the answers are an absolute NO. However, as someone who has done exactly that, I feel compelled to tell you my career story. Hold tight, because this is going to be a long one.
I studied industrial engineering, and one of the harder courses is “software design.” I still remember squeaking my teethes while I worked on the C++ code for homework (and I finished my studies more then ten years ago!). We studied object-oriented design, and I remember it .
That’s the whole coding experience I had in my whole adult life (except some python and Matlab code I wrote while studying the machine-learning basics).
When I finished my first degree, I started to serve as an officer in the IDF. Most of the work I did in the eight years that followed was writing requirement documents for products that HR quarter needed and technical project management. In those years, I learned a lot of things, but the two major ones where:
- Visualising dreams into systems. I was able to hear someone and see before my eyes the kind of DB, processes, and code that will be needed in order to make his dream come true.
- There’s nothing in the world that put chains on you, except your own mind. You can achieve absolutely anything, and anything is negotiable. You might ask yourself how I learned that in such a strict place like the IDF — and I will tell you that in the middle of this hierarchy organisation I was able to see that there’s so much flexibility.
After finishing the IDF phase, I started a post as a business analyst at service company named Ngsoft. Already used to writing the technical spec and managing developers until we reach delivery, I became the team leader in just a few months. My main career shift came with the unbelievable offer — to manage the R&D department.
I got the call with the offer while I was at maternity leave (with my third son). It was mind-blowing and I seriously doubted my ability to manage developers, because I never developed myself. But, obviously, I accepted the challenge :)
The next phase begins today, as I took the rule of Co-Founder and CTO (read more here) — and studied the art of react-native and began the amazing journey of an entrepreneur.
