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Being a CTO is great, but ...

Matthew on August 04, 2019

Earlier this week I wrote my first blog post, and, to be honest, I was so surprised to see how many people reacted to it here and on Twitter. I've ...
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Victoria Mostova

Matthew, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the joys and challenges of being a CTO. It's inspiring to hear about your experiences and the rewards that come with the role. For those curious about what does a CTO do, your article sheds light on the diverse responsibilities and the crucial impact CTOs have in driving technological innovation. Great read!

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Josef Strzibny

When I speak to young developers who have just finished school, the question I often ask them: "Why don't you try freelancing ?".

The answer is pretty much the one I would have given too: "I don't feel legitimate enough".

So, I think, we, as a community, should help those young developers to feel more legitimate.

Please no. Most of the young developers are not ready to freelance in the true spirit of freelancing (to work with a client on their own). They simply did not experience enough. I really feel for the client in this case. It's a terrible advice that can turn out terrible for the client.

You should not try to make them more legitimate at all. They should get experience by working with more experience people in the team. Should young doctors freelance just after school or should young lawyers freelance just after school? No, if they are still eager to learn something.

Sure it can be done, hack, I even did this myself, but I don't recommend it.

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Matthew

I guess I agree to some extent.

But, as long as you are honest with the client on the fact you don't have much experience, I really don't see the problem.

But while recruiting or looking for freelancers for my company, I also came across people who say they are experienced, had worked in other companies, had been mentored and thought they knew everything about tech.

So, I do think we should make young passionate developers feel legitimate about working in tech and trying freelancing.

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Bhupesh Varshney 👾

I knew you would have some great insights
Loved it 👌.
(you can start a AMA if you want)
btw, I found a typo here 😆😆

I'm in charge of recruiting the team that will build our products. I'll put this item in both cool and uncool lists and explain why it's also uncool to me. Recruiting is fun ! You get to meat people that come from different backgrounds.

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Bhupesh Varshney 👾 • Edited

Any idea on how we could do that ? Feel free to respond to this post, I'd be glad to discuss it with you all.

Being a beginner myself, I think working on some side projects (from scratch, like building something whose tutorial you won't find on youtube) may help.

And after you make it asking your fellow senior dev to review it for you

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Matthew

Thanks so much 👍

Will fix the typo 😅

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Hatem Houssein

When I speak to young developers who have just finished school, the question I often ask them: "Why don't you try freelancing ?".

Maybe they don't know yet why they need to freelance. Without any prior office experience, it seems more extensive effort without a relevant reason. Happened to me when I first started working after graduation. After sometime, I realized why freelancing cons can outweigh normal 9-5 jobs' cons.

For example, you struggle with the CEO in sometimes at work which showed you that freelancing would save you from these situations (not really, because clients are pretty much the same). But to a junior, these office-clashes are unknown and irrelevant to them.