rob.rho.org.uk

I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve, a time when it’s traditional to reflect on the year gone by. For me, there’s been one big change that has kept me so busy that I’m only getting round to writing about it six months later. At the start of July, I took on the role of CTO at Cydar.

There’s been a lot to get to grips with; not just the usual strategic and management responsibilities common to the CTO of any growing startup, but also the processes and regulations required when developing a medical device. Fortunately, we have an excellent team, and John, my predecessor, provided invaluable support while I found my feet.

Now I’ve had a while to get the hang of things, and I’m really liking the change. This is not only true where I expected it to be, in the technical areas were I now have responsibility, but also in the areas where I’ve not had previous experience. I was expecting the more organisational aspects of the role to be a price I paid to get my teeth into the fun stuff, but I was surprised to find myself enjoying them. I’ve always enjoyed learning new things, and there’s a lot for me to learn.

The flip side of this is the things that I’m not doing. Given the other things now on my plate, I’ve largely stepped back from programming day-to-day.The last time I moved into a largely non-programming role, I missed writing code. This time around I’m not finding the same thing. It could be because I have more than enough to keep me busy elsewhere. However, I think that it’s rather because I’m still very much working in development in the wider sense. Even though I’m not generally committing changes into Git, I’m still involved in the design, planning and review. The main difference is that I now spend more time looking at the big picture, though I’m hoping the years of focussing on the details will stand me in good stead as I do so.