From senior engineer to CTO in 18 months
What changed, what didn't, and the parts nobody warns you about when the title arrives before the experience.
I joined Sparrow Charts as a senior engineer and left as CTO. Between those two lines was an engineering manager role that lasted eleven months and taught me more than either of the titles around it.
The work that stayed the same: reading code carefully, writing down decisions, and shipping something small every week. The work that changed entirely: my output became other people's output, which meant the feedback loop stretched from hours to quarters.
The unwarned part is how much of the job is repetition. The same architectural principle explained in five different rooms until it becomes the default. That is not a communication failure — it is the mechanism.
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