Communications of the ACM
Going From Developer to CEO
"When we started out building the company, we were heads down building the product we wished we could have bought," Martin Mao says.
Credit: Forbes
Ever wondered what it would be like to go from a developer to eventually becoming the CEO of a large and growing company? Martin Mao traveled this path, starting his first developer job at a local startup in Australia, then making the move to the U.S. — first at Microsoft in Seattle, then at Amazon, and then at Uber in Silicon Valley.
However, Mao has not written a line of production code for the last four years, as he's taken on the role of CEO at observability scaleup Chronosphere. The company supports billions of active time series across its customer fleet.
Chronosphere was founded by two former software engineers: Rob Skillington — now CTO — and Mao. "With my co-founder, we quickly established that [Skillington] would remain technical, and I would be on the business side," Mao says.
"My day-to-day life now, as CEO, is very different to when I was an engineer or even an engineering manager. Right at the start, I still had GitHub access and did some reviews," he says.
"Over time, I built up a support network. Leaning on VCs. Leaning on advisors. Seeking out other founders and CEOs," Mao says. "Most founders and CEOs give a lot more time than you would expect. One CEO in particular has helped me out no end. This makes me want to pay it forward as well, and help earlier-stage founders too."
From The Pragmatic Engineer
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