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kuchin/awesome-cto

A curated and opinionated list of resources for Chief Technology Officers, with the emphasis on startups

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README.md

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# Awesome CTO

> &mdash; Hello, my name is Dima and I'm a CTO
>
> &mdash; (chorus) Welcome, Dima

A curated and **opinionated** list of resources for [Chief Technology Officers and VP R&D](https://kuchin.github.io/awesome-cto/), with the emphasis on startups and hyper-growth companies.

📢 [Subscribe to get updates](https://awesomecto.substack.com/)

## Contents

* [CTO Position](#cto-position)
 * [Hiring](#hiring)
 * [People management](#people-management)
 * [Career growth](#career-growth)
 * [Project management](#project-management)
 * [Handbooks](#handbooks)
 * [Development process](#development-process)
 * [Architecture](#architecture)
 * [Technologies](#technologies)
 * [Data](#data)
 * [Startups](#startups)
 * [Due Diligence](#due-diligence)
 * [Money / Finance](#money--finance)
 * [Related stuff](#related-stuff)
 * [Product](#product)
 * [Marketing](#marketing)
 * [Books](#books)
 * [More links](#more-links)

## CTO Position

* [The Different CTO Roles](https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/07/the_different_cto_roles.html) - Werner Vogels *(Amazon CTO)*
 * [Is it required to be a developer to become a CTO?](https://www.quora.com/Is-it-required-to-be-a-developer-coder-to-become-a-CTO-Why-cant-an-architect-become-a-CTO) *(Quora)*
 * [Three Golden Rules to Finding a CTO](https://www.rudebaguette.com/2011/12/01/three-golden-rules-to-finding-a-cto/)
 * [Becoming a CTO](https://web.archive.org/web/20171128214925/https://juokaz.com/blog/becoming-a-cto)
 * [VP Engineering vs CTO](https://avc.com/2011/10/vp-engineering-vs-cto/) - Fred Wilson *(Union Square Ventures)*
 * [What makes for a successful CEO and CTO relationship in a startup?](https://www.quora.com/What-makes-for-a-successful-CEO-and-CTO-relationship-in-a-startup) *(Quora)*
 * [#define CTO](https://blog.gregbrockman.com/figuring-out-the-cto-role-at-stripe) - Greg Brockman *(Stripe CTO)*
 * [How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown to 100 engineers](https://medium.com/gusto-engineering/how-my-role-as-cto-has-changed-as-weve-grown-to-100-engineers-b16a8a6b1a88)
 * [Your first 90 days as CTO or VP Engineering](https://lethain.com/first-ninety-days-cto-vpe/) - Will Larson
 * [How to spend your first 30 days in a new senior-level role](https://larahogan.me/blog/first-30-days-new-role/)
 * [The difference between a CTO and a VP Engineering](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140615184118-4928723-the-differences-between-a-cto-and-a-vp-engineering/)
 * [Evolution of my role as a founder CTO](https://miguelcarranza.es/cto), [Year 4 Update](https://miguelcarranza.es/cto-year-4), [Year 5 Update](https://miguelcarranza.es/cto-year-5) - Miguel Carranza

## Hiring

* [The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/10/25/the-guerrilla-guide-to-interviewing-version-30/) - Joel Spolsky *(StackOverflow co-founder)*
 * [The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/) - Joel Spolsky
 * [Why Can't Programmers.. Program?](https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/) - Jeff Atwood *(StackOverflow co-founder)*
 * [We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else](https://blog.codinghorror.com/we-hire-the-best-just-like-everyone-else/) - Jeff Atwood
 * [Getting the Interview Phone Screen Right](https://blog.codinghorror.com/getting-the-interview-phone-screen-right/) - Jeff Atwood
 * [Engineering interview process at Stripe](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-engineering-interview-process-like-at-Stripe) *(Quora)*
 * [Improving Our Engineering Interview Process](https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/improving-our-engineering-interview-process-106173ba25a9) *(Foursquare)*
 * [Hitting the High Notes](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/07/25/hitting-the-high-notes/) - Joel Spolsky
 * [Top 10 System Design Interview Questions](https://hackernoon.com/top-10-system-design-interview-questions-for-software-engineers-8561290f0444) - *(HackerNoon)*
 * [How To Hire World-Class Engineers](https://angel.co/blog/how-to-hire-world-class-engineers) *(angel.co)*
 * [Trouble hiring senior engineers? It's probably you](https://hiringengineersbook.com/post/trouble-hiring/)
 * [The Real 11 Reasons I Don't Hire You](https://charity.wtf/2019/10/18/the-real-11-reasons-i-dont-hire-you/) - Charity Majors
 * [How to Interview at Amazon](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-interview-amazon-leadership-david-anderson/)
 * [Lessons from Keith Rabois: How to Interview an Executive](https://delian.io/lessons-2)
 * [Lessons from Keith Rabois: How to Become a Magnet for Talent](https://delian.io/lessons-5)
 * [GitLab Talent Acquisition Framework](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/hiring/talent-acquisition-framework/)
 * [Visualizing Tech Company Layoffs in 2022](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-tech-company-layoffs-in-2022/)

## People Management

* [The mythical 10x programmer](http://antirez.com/news/112) - Salvatore Sanfilippo *(author of Redis)*
 * [The Engineer/Manager Pendulum](https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/) - Charity Majors
 * [Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html) - Paul Graham *(Y Combinator)*
 * [Software Engineering at Google](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.01715.pdf)
 * [Google re:Work](https://rework.withgoogle.com)
 * [44 Engineering Management Lessons](https://www.defmacro.org/2014/10/03/engman.html) (correct link to [non-violent communication](https://review.firstround.com/power-up-your-team-with-nonviolent-communication-principles) for lesson 34)
 * [The Secret To Discussing Pay With Employees](https://www.officevibe.com/blog/secret-to-discussing-pay-with-employees)
 * [Awesome Leading and Managing](https://github.com/LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing) *(Github)*
 * [A Review Process](https://capwatkins.com/blog/a-review-process) - Cap Watkins
 * [12 manager readmes from top tech companies](https://hackernoon.com/12-manager-readmes-from-silicon-valleys-top-tech-companies-26588a660afe)
 * [Predictable Delivery](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1weEU1G-4JAhD6tRlYinYS1ZOHI_SAUQkvTBFBzi67G0/edit)
 * [How people rise up to EVP level in big organizations](https://www.quora.com/How-do-some-people-get-stuck-at-a-senior-engineer-position-while-a-few-starts-or-rise-up-to-EVP-level-in-big-organizations-like-Microsoft-Amazon-Apple-Google-What-exactly-should-I-keep-doing-to-go-up-the-ladder) *(Quora)*
 * [Should I Become a Manager?](https://capwatkins.com/blog/should-i-become-a-manager) - Cap Watkins
 * [How to fail as a new engineering manager](https://blog.usejournal.com/how-to-fail-as-a-new-engineering-manager-30b5fb617a)
 * [Design Patterns for Managing Up](https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3308563)
 * [A Tactical Guide to Managing Up](https://review.firstround.com/a-tactical-guide-to-managing-up-30-tips-from-the-smartest-people-we-know)
 * [Engineering Management](https://github.com/charlax/engineering-management) *(Github)*
 * [On-boarding Software Engineers](https://medium.com/@odedmagger/on-boarding-software-engineers-10-techniques-to-get-it-right-927cb73e3dab)
 * [Hold Your Team Accountable](https://www.dave-bailey.com/blog/accountability-dial)
 * [The Manager FAQ](https://www.seebs.net/faqs/manager.html)
 * [The Power of Performance Reviews](https://firstround.com/review/the-power-of-performance-reviews-use-this-system-to-become-a-better-manager/)
 * [Performance reviews are coming up](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gergelyorosz_performancereviews-softwarengineering-career-activity-7008079544171528192-D2fF/) - Gergely Orosz
 * [Principles of Engineering Management](https://medium.com/swlh/principles-of-engineering-management-c9cae1b34a8b)
 * [Draw The Owl and Other Company Values You Didn’t Know You Should Have](https://firstround.com/review/draw-the-owl-and-other-company-values-you-didnt-know-you-should-have/)
 * [A MANAGER’S BILL OF RESPONSIBILITIES (AND RIGHTS)](https://charity.wtf/2019/10/30/a-managers-bill-of-responsibilities-and-rights/)
 * [After Being A Manager, Can I Be Happy As A Cog?](https://charity.wtf/2019/11/23/questionable-advice-after-being-a-manager-can-i-be-happy-as-a-cog/)
 * [Increment: Teams](https://increment.com/teams/)
 * [Hacking team communications](https://noamelf.com/posts/hacking-team-communications/)
 * [How to build a startup engineering team](https://increment.com/teams/how-to-build-a-startup-engineering-team/)
 * [Hug your manager](https://buttondown.email/cote/archive/hug-your-manager/)
 * [Lessons from Keith Rabois: How to be an Effective Executive](https://delian.io/lessons-3)
 * [How Context Switching Sabotages Your Productivity](https://blog.doist.com/context-switching/) 
 * [10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I Learned](https://casnocha.com/reid-hoffman-lessons)
 * [7 Ways to Set Up a New Hire for Success](https://hbr.org/2019/05/7-ways-to-set-up-a-new-hire-for-success)
 * [How to get promoted](https://www.spakhm.com/p/how-to-get-promoted)
 * [Individuals matter](https://danluu.com/people-matter/)
 * [Mandate Levels](https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-2752-mandate-levels)
 * [10 ideas for building great culture in a distributed (remote) team](https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/status/1520442729397858304)
 * [Adapting to Endure / Crisis management](https://www.sequoiacap.com/adapting-to-endure-2022/) - Sequoia
 * [Mochary Method Curriculum](https://docs.google.com/document/d/18FiJbYn53fTtPmphfdCKT2TMWH-8Y2L-MLqDk-MFV4s/preview) - Matt Mochary
 * [Meetings for an effective eng organization](https://lethain.com/eng-org-meetings/) - Will Larson
 * [The One Key to Dealing with Senior Executives: Answer the Question!](https://kellblog.com/2012/01/17/the-one-key-to-dealing-with-senior-executives-answer-the-question/)
 * [Step by step guide to building high performing teams](https://mm-coaches.notion.site/Step-by-step-guide-to-building-high-performing-teams-a1d3c70c031144738943e043933d3267)
 * [Cycle times](https://boz.com/articles/cycle-times) - Andrew Bosworth

## Career growth
 * [Career Growth Frameworks in Software Engineering: A Review](https://web.archive.org/web/20210123114037/https://medium.com/better-programming/career-growth-frameworks-in-software-engineering-a-review-4aa6c59a9cf6)
 * [Software Engineers Growth framework](https://prontopro.engineering/blog/software-engineer-growth-framework)
 * [Software Engineering Ladders](https://github.com/jorgef/engineeringladders) *(GitHub)*
 * [Awesome Engineering Ladders](https://github.com/posquit0/awesome-engineering-ladders) *(GitHub)*
 * Reverse Interview
   * [The Reverse Interview: How To Choose Your Next Company](https://www.reforge.com/blog/reverse-interview)
   * [Reverse Interviewing — How to interview a company as well as they interview you](https://www.fishmanafnewsletter.com/p/how-to-reverse-interview)
   * [Reverse Interview Questions](https://github.com/viraptor/reverse-interview) *(GitHub)*

## Project management

* [Evidence Based Scheduling](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/10/26/evidence-based-scheduling/) - Joel Spolsky *(StackOverflow co-founder)*
 * [How Big Tech Runs Tech Projects and the Curious Absence of Scrum](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/project-management-in-tech) - Gergely Orosz
 * [The Secret to a Great Planning Process — Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite](https://review.firstround.com/the-secret-to-a-great-planning-process-lessons-from-airbnb-and-eventbrite)
 * [What TPMs Do and What Software Engineers Can Learn From Them](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/what-tpms-do) - Gergely Orosz
 * [How to Scope a New Feature](https://www.prodify.group/blog/how-to-scope-a-new-feature)
 * [Measuring an engineering organization](https://lethain.com/measuring-engineering-organizations/) - Will Larson

## Handbooks

* [The Atlassian Team Playbook](https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook)
 * [Valve Employee Handbook](https://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf)
 * [Basecamp Employee Handbook](https://github.com/basecamp/handbook)
 * [GitLab Team Handbook](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/)
 * [How HashiCorp Works](https://works.hashicorp.com/)

## Development process

* Scrum / Agile
   * [Introduction to Scrum for Managers and Executives](https://www.goodagile.com/resources/goodagile_managers_presentation.pdf)
   * [Writing User Stories, Examples and Templates In Agile Methodologies](http://www.yodiz.com/blog/writing-user-stories-examples-and-templates-in-agile-methodologies/)
 * CI / CD
   * [What are the fundamental principles of continuous integration?](https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-fundamental-principles-of-continuous-integration)
   * [The Product Managers’ Guide to Continuous Delivery and DevOps](https://www.mindtheproduct.com/2016/02/what-the-hell-are-ci-cd-and-devops-a-cheatsheet-for-the-rest-of-us/)
 * Git
   * [Comparing Git workflows](https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/comparing-workflows)
   * [A successful Git branching model](https://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/)
   * Alternative: [Trunk Based Development](https://www.atlassian.com/continuous-delivery/continuous-integration/trunk-based-development) (focused on [DevOps and CI/CD](https://cloud.google.com/solutions/devops/devops-tech-trunk-based-development))
 * Tech debt
   * [Why You Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Technical Debt](https://marker.medium.com/why-you-should-learn-to-stop-worrying-and-love-technical-debt-55bb5684f94c)
   * [It’s Time to Rethink Technical Debt Management](https://www.sealights.io/blog/its-time-to-rethink-technical-debt-management/)
 * Crisis
   * [How to Write a Postmortem](https://web.archive.org/web/20210618014202/https://blog.serverdensity.com/how-to-write-a-postmortem/)
   * [List of Post-mortems](https://github.com/danluu/post-mortems) *(GitHub)*
   * [Startup Lessons Learned - Five Whys](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/11/five-whys.html) - Eric Ries *(creator of the Lean Startup)*
   * [On Call Rotations: How Best to Wake Devs Up in the Middle of the Night](https://thenewstack.io/call-rotations-best-wake-devs-middle-night/)
   * [Testing in Production, the safe way](https://medium.com/@copyconstruct/testing-in-production-the-safe-way-18ca102d0ef1)
 * Error handling
   * [When life gives you lemons, write better error messages](https://wix-ux.com/when-life-gives-you-lemons-write-better-error-messages-46c5223e1a2f)

## Architecture

* [Twelve-Factor App](https://12factor.net)
 * [Reactive Manifesto](https://www.reactivemanifesto.org)
 * [An introduction to distributed systems](https://github.com/aphyr/distsys-class) - Kyle Kingsbury *(aphyr, author of Jepsen)*
 * [Microservices – Please, don’t](https://riak.com/posts/technical/microservices-please-dont/) (also: [HackerNews discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508655))
 * [GitHub CTO – Biggest architectural mistake was going full microservice](https://twitter.com/jasoncwarner/status/1592227285024636928) (also: [HackerNews discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33601658))
 * [The Death of Microservice Madness in 2018](https://www.dwmkerr.com/the-death-of-microservice-madness-in-2018/)
 * [Shrinking microservices to functions](https://highscalability.com/blog/2017/3/27/faster-networks-cheaper-messages-microservices-functions-edg.html)
 * [Design patterns for microservices](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/design-patterns-for-microservices/)
 * [Serverless architecture](https://www.quora.com/What-is-Serverless-Computing) *(Quora)*
   * [Serverless framework](https://www.serverless.com)
 * [Best Practices for Designing a Pragmatic RESTful API](https://www.vinaysahni.com/best-practices-for-a-pragmatic-restful-api)
 * [10 Modern Software Over-Engineering Mistakes](https://medium.com/@rdsubhas/10-modern-software-engineering-mistakes-bc67fbef4fc8)
 * [How I Write Tests](https://blog.nelhage.com/2016/12/how-i-test/)
 * [Lambda Architecture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_architecture)
 * [Awesome Scalability](https://github.com/binhnguyennus/awesome-scalability) *(GitHub)*
 * [The Single Most Important Internal Email in the History of Amazon](https://web.archive.org/web/20221127150918/https://pulseasync.com/operators/frameworks-for-remote-working/)
 * [Build Your Own X](https://github.com/danistefanovic/build-your-own-x) *(GitHub)*
 * [Accentuate the negative: making the non-perfect decision. Technical decision making](https://leaddev.com/technical-decision-making/accentuate-negative-making-non-perfect-decision)

## Technologies

* General
   * [Developer Roadmaps](https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap) *(GitHub)*
   * [Coding Interview University](https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university) *(GitHub)*
   * [Big-O explained in plain English](https://stackoverflow.com/a/487278/472433)
 * Javascript
   * [JS: The Right Way](http://jstherightway.org)
   * [Frontend developer handbook 2019](https://frontendmasters.com/guides/front-end-handbook/2019/)
 * Big scale
   * [What is CAP Theorem?](https://www.quora.com/What-Is-CAP-Theorem-1) *(Quora)*
   * [CAP Theorem: Revisited](https://robertgreiner.com/cap-theorem-revisited/)
 * Security
   * [Awesome Security](https://github.com/sbilly/awesome-security) *(GitHub)*
   * [SaaS CTO Security Checklist](https://web.archive.org/web/20230324072622/https://www.goldfiglabs.com/guide/saas-cto-security-checklist/)
 * Search
   * [Open Guide to Search Engineering](https://github.com/open-guides/og-search-engineering) *(GitHub)*
 * Cloud
   * [Open Guide to Amazon Web Services](https://github.com/open-guides/og-aws) *(GitHub)*
   * [Amazon AWS in Plain English](https://www.expeditedssl.com/aws-in-plain-english)
   * [Microsoft Azure in Plain English](https://web.archive.org/web/20190508145128/https://www.expeditedssl.com/azure-in-plain-english)
   * [Google Cloud Services for the AWS expert](https://cloudacademy.com/blog/google-cloud-services-aws-expert/)
 * Pricing
   * [Awesome Billing](https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-billing) *(GitHub)*
   * [Awesome PriceOps](https://github.com/priceops/awesome-priceops) *(GitHub)*

## Data

* [NoSQL Databases: a Survey and Decision Guidance](https://medium.baqend.com/nosql-databases-a-survey-and-decision-guidance-ea7823a822d)
 * [Evolutionary Database Design](https://martinfowler.com/articles/evodb.html) *(Martin Fowler)*
 * [Database Migrations Done Right](https://www.brunton-spall.co.uk/post/2014/05/06/database-migrations-done-right/)
 * [A reference guide for fintech & small-data engineering](https://medium.com/dangerous-engineering/a-reference-guide-for-fintech-small-data-engineering-bd65b9796d90)
 * [Building a data team at a mid-stage startup: a short story](https://erikbern.com/2021/07/07/the-data-team-a-short-story.html)
 * [DataOps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dataops)
 * [Databases in 2022: A Year in Review](https://ottertune.com/blog/2022-databases-retrospective/)
 * Data Science
   * [Building a data science team](https://fastdatascience.com/building-a-data-science-team/)
   * [Managing Data Science Teams](https://www.dominodatalab.com/resources/field-guide/managing-data-science-teams/)
   * [How to Structure a Data Science Team](https://www.altexsoft.com/blog/datascience/how-to-structure-data-science-team-key-models-and-roles/)
 * Machine Learning
   * [Awesome Machine Learning](https://github.com/josephmisiti/awesome-machine-learning) *(GitHub)*
   * [Best resources of everyday ML learning](https://www.quora.com/As-a-data-scientist-what-is-your-best-resource-of-everyday-learning) *(Quora)*
   * [Machine Learning Crash Course: with TensorFlow APIs](https://developers.google.com/machine-learning/crash-course/) *(Google)*
   * [Deep Learning For Coders](https://course.fast.ai)
   * [Awesome Production Machine Learning](https://github.com/EthicalML/awesome-production-machine-learning) *(GitHub)*
   * [Weapons of Math Destruction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_Math_Destruction)

## Startups

* [What are the things startups have to get right?](https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-things-startups-have-to-get-right) *(Quora)*
 * [85 Things I learned being a CEO](https://hackernoon.com/85-things-i-learned-being-a-ceo-4c25fc1c7b99)
 * [What’s the Second Job of a Startup CEO?](https://web.archive.org/web/20200614150106/https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-second-job-of-a-startup-ceo/)
 * [Things I will tell my kids if they become entrepreneurs](https://www.slideshare.net/laurenthaug/things-i-will-tell-my-kids-if-they-become-entrepreneurs)
 * [What do VCs really look for when making investments?](https://www.quora.com/What-do-VCs-really-look-for-when-making-investments) *(Quora)*
 * [As an employee of a startup, how do you know when to quit?](https://www.quora.com/As-an-employee-of-a-startup-how-do-you-know-when-to-quit) *(Quora)*
 * [Pitch deck collection from VC funded startups](https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/pitch-deck-collection-from-vc-funded-startups/)
 * [YC’s Series A Diligence Checklist](https://blog.ycombinator.com/ycs-series-a-diligence-checklist/)
 * [Startup Playbook](https://playbook.samaltman.com) - Sam Altman
 * [Y Combinator Startup Class](https://startupclass.samaltman.com)
 * [Lean Canvas](https://leanstack.com/leancanvas) + [Miro template](https://miro.com/templates/lean-canvas/)
 * [Open Source Pitch Deck Templates for Figma](https://www.figmafinder.com/figma-pitch-deck)
 * [List of startups that had successful pivots](https://github.com/fikrikarim/companies-with-successful-pivot) *(GitHub)*

## Due Diligence
 * [Technology Due Diligence Checklist](https://akfpartners.com/growth-blog/technical-due-diligence-checklists)
 * [Technical Due Diligence Questions](https://github.com/altunyurt/technical_due_diligence) *(GitHub)*
 * [IT Department Tech Due Diligence Checklist](https://gist.github.com/raphaelbauer/b31d49d91a0af6c1106bfc8ef4bf6d13)
 * [A Guide to Surviving Tech Due Diligence](https://circleci.com/resources/tech-due-diligence/)

## Money / Finance

* Startups
   * [IPOs and Beyond: A Guide to Exit Options for Companies](https://future.a16z.com/ipos-and-beyond-a-guide-to-exit-options-for-companies/)
   * [What would a CTO equity be for a small startup?](https://www.quora.com/What-would-a-CTO-compensation-equity-be-for-a-small-startup) *(Quora)*
   * [Options vs Cash](https://danluu.com/startup-options/)
   * [How To Invest In Startups](https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-invest-in-startups) - Sam Altman
   * [A Guide to Seed Fundraising](https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-to-raise-a-seed-round/)
   * [Startup Economics equity calculator](https://smartasset.com/infographic/startup)
   * [Option grants at seed](https://www.indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/option-grants-at-seed)
   * [Joining the new startup, with a handsome stock option allocation](https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1601134509424267264) - Gergely Orosz
   * [Equity 101 for Software Engineers at Big Tech and Startups](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/equity-for-software-engineers/) - Gergely Orosz
 * Big companies
   * [Financial Planning & Analysis @ GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/finance/financial-planning-and-analysis/)
   * [Framework for balancing and budgeting engineering resourcing](https://medium.com/engineering-operations/a-framework-for-balancing-and-budgeting-engineering-resourcing-d0cce0e6911c)
   * [Negotiate the right deal with suppliers](https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/negotiate-the-right-deal-with-suppliers/)
   * [Strategic Procurements 10 Commandments for Managing the Buying Process](https://strategicdynamicsfirm.com/strategic-procurements-10-commandments-managing-hospital-buying-process/)

## Related stuff

* [Knowledge-Sharing Architects As An Alternative to Coding Architects](http://ithare.com/knowledge-sharing-architects-as-an-alternative-to-coding-architects/)
 * [Ten Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer](https://haseebq.com/my-ten-rules-for-negotiating-a-job-offer/) (also: [HackerNews discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12197795))
 * [Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)
 * [What are best practices of experienced programmers?](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-traits-practices-of-experienced-good-programmers-that-every-beginner-programmer-should-know) *(Quora)*
 * [Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/)
 * [2016 European Software Development Salary Survey](http://web.archive.org/web/20170412051943/https://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/files/2016-european-software-development-salary-survey.pdf) *(O'Reilly)*
 * [DevOps: Bringing development and operations together](https://www.atlassian.com/devops) *(Atlassian)*
 * [How to Prepare a Talk](https://www.deconstructconf.com/blog/how-to-prepare-a-talk)
 * [Undervalued Software Engineering Skills: Writing Well](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/on-writing-well/) - Gergely Orosz
 * [The Pyramid Principle](https://medium.com/lessons-from-mckinsey/the-pyramid-principle-f0885dd3c5c7)
 * [Senior Engineer’s Checklist](https://medium.com/@littleblah/my-top-25-items-in-a-senior-engineers-checklist-c8e9f9f6e3c2)
 * [How to Use OpenAPI and Swagger for Documentation](https://blog.readme.com/how-to-use-openapi-and-swagger-spec-for-documentation/)

## Product
 * [What Makes a Great Product Manager](https://hackernoon.com/what-makes-a-great-product-manager-3c1d03b90356)
 * [If You Don’t Think You Need a VP of Product...](https://www.saastr.com/if-you-dont-think-you-need-a-vp-of-product-marketing-etc-then-you-havent-worked-with-a-great-one/)
 * [Red Oceans: How to Find Profitable Startup Ideas](https://capitalandgrowth.org/answers/Article/3143488/How-to-Find-Profitable-Business-Ideas)
 * [Product North Star Metric](https://amplitude.com/blog/product-north-star-metric)
 * [What distinguishes the Top 1% of product managers from the Top 10%?](https://www.quora.com/What-distinguishes-the-Top-1-of-product-managers-from-the-Top-10/answer/Ian-McAllister) - *(Quora)*
 * [How to Hire a Product Manager](https://www.kennorton.com/essays/productmanager.html)
 * [The Secrets Of Creative Thinking](https://www.lemonade.com/blog/creative-thinking-hacks/)
 * [StellarPeers - Product Management Interviews](https://medium.com/stellarpeers)
 * [Product vs. Feature Teams](https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/)
 * [Most Startups Should Be Deer Hunters](https://bothsidesofthetable.com/most-startups-should-be-deer-hunters-7fdecf58f4f6)
 * [Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters](https://basecamp.com/shapeup)
 * [How to Write Your First Strategic Roadmap](https://ganotnoa.com/how-to-write-your-first-strategic-roadmap-part-1/)
 * [Execution at Facebook](https://productlife.to/p/-execution-at-facebook)
 * [8 Product Hurdles Every Founder Must Clear](https://review.firstround.com/8-product-hurdles-every-founder-must-clear-this-pm-turned-founder-shares-his-playbooks)
 * [The Top 10 Deliverables of Product Managers](https://www.sachinrekhi.com/top-10-deliverables-of-product-managers)
 * [Product Manager Career Ladders](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F1Y3YtjsvAJUZMqS-rK0LGQGg7eHYubq9KqedPwLCDE/edit#gid=1578462935) - Lenny Rachitsky
 * [Awesome Product Management](https://github.com/dend/awesome-product-management) *(GitHub)*
 * [Awesome Product Manager](https://github.com/yuhenobi/awesome-product-manager) *(GitHub)*

## Marketing

* [Developer Marketing Guide](https://www.devmarketingguide.com)
 * [Top Resources for Startup Marketing and PR](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tAiya71mDQgtwn_F9-mNQhuc7GdsQ5e2_BeG69Cb82A/edit#gid=0)
 * [SaaS Email Marketing Handbook](https://saasemailmarketing.net)
 * [How today's fastest growing B2B businesses found their first ten customers](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-todays-fastest-growing-b2b-businesses)

## Books

* [Epic CTO Reading List](https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/36429.Epic_CTO_Reading_List)
 * [The Mythical Man-Month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)
 * [Startup CTO's Handbook](https://github.com/ZachGoldberg/Startup-CTO-Handbook/)

## More links

* [Awesome Falsehood](https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood) *(GitHub)*
 * [Engineering blogs](https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering-blogs) *(GitHub)*
 * [Awesome Awesomeness](https://github.com/bayandin/awesome-awesomeness) *(GitHub)*
 * [Awesome.re](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome) *(GitHub)*
 * [Chief Technology Officer vs Coder Thinker Organizer](https://github.com/92bondstreet/cto) *(GitHub)*
 * [Senior Software Engineer](https://staffeng.com)
 * [Socal CTO](https://www.socalcto.com/2011/09/startup-cto.html)
 * [Curated list of CTO resources](https://github.com/92bondstreet/cto) *(GitHub)*
 * [Awesome CTO Resources](https://github.com/mateusz-brainhub/awesome-cto-resources) *(GitHub)*
 * [Free Tools for Developers](https://free-for.dev)
 * [NfX - The Founder Library](https://www.nfx.com)
 * [foundr - Advices from founders](https://foundr.com/articles)
 * [The Leadership Library for Engineers](https://leadership-library.dev)
 * [Rands Leadership Slack](https://randsinrepose.com/welcome-to-rands-leadership-slack/)
 * [Engineering Managers Slack](https://engmanagers.github.io)
 * [CTO Framework](https://ctoframework.com)
 * [CTO Insights Podcast](https://ctoinsights.adevait.com/)

## Other
- [Awesome CEO](https://github.com/kuchin/awesome-ceo) *(GitHub)*
- [Awesome TPM](https://github.com/kuchin/awesome-tpm) *(GitHub)*

## License

[![CC0](https://mirrors.creativecommons.org/presskit/buttons/88x31/svg/cc-zero.svg)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

Repository info

Default branch: main
Latest version: —
Created: 2016-12-17
Last activity: 2026-03-02
License: CC0-1.0
Open issues: 8
Watchers: 767

Topics

architecture awesome awesome-list cto decision-making engineering-management hiring interviewing leadership management principles roadmap software-engineering startups

Contributors

kuchin

180 contributions

darigovresearch

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MohamedBsh

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maximveksler

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benoror

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