Reality Check finally wrote down the CTO job.
The document is very simple. The company is only about fifteen people, and this is obviously its first stab at a roles document.
That is okay. It still covers the useful parts.
Who do I report to? What is the job? What are the goals? How will anybody decide whether I did what the company hired me to do?
Those questions matter more than making the offer look fancy.
I sent the document to somebody close to me who is considering her first vice-president role at a company she does not own. I also sent my offer letter and goals as examples.
My note was much longer than the document.
I walked through reporting structure, salary, bonus, non-compete language, benefits, options, severance, expenses, vacation, and start date. I have opinions about all of them. Some are probably stronger than my actual sample size deserves.
I called my own offer “INCREDIBLY simple / pedestrian” and still used it as the example. A basic real document beats an elaborate imaginary one.
The part I care about most is having the goals written down. An executive should know what the company expects before the year-end review. If the role is supposed to change how the company works, it also needs enough authority and protection to try something different without being fired the first time the route gets uncomfortable.
My own Reality Check document is not sophisticated. It is a basic outline from a small company.
But it exists.
The title is CTO. Now there is a page explaining what that means.