The phone rang in the meeting with the CEO. He said, “Sorry, I can’t talk now. I am in a meeting with my new VP of Engineering and he’s a rock star.”
The title “rock star” can mean different things. To this CEO it meant he finally had someone he could rely on to get the software product developed. The CEO had fumbled badly spending over $50,000 with a local web design firm with little to show for it.
There are three kinds of VP of Engineering Rock Stars:
(1) Technical Achiever
(2) Mature Leader
(3) Global Leader
And a fourth alternative: The Part Time Rock Star
Now he had hope.
A non-technical or business-oriented CEO must hire a competent VP of Engineering (VPE) to take responsibility for on-time delivery of a high quality product. But what kind of person should our CEO hire? Should the VPE be hands-on and contributing to the code? Or should the VPE be a people manager and stay above the details of the daily builds?
Either way, you want to hire a rock star. But what is a rock star VPE?
Rock Star as a Technical Achiever
The CEO of a startup wanted to hire a VPE to jump in and start doing hands-on work with Microsoft .NET. His rock star will have his or her own MSDN subscription and personally built several ASP.NET web applications using Visual Studio.
If you need a small project done quickly by a person you work with directly then this kind of rock star is for you. But there is a risk this kind of rock star will not play well with others. He may not be able to grow and motivate a team when product needs exceed the capacity of one or two programmers. Not a problem if you plan to stay small.
Rock Star as a Mature Leader
Another software company already has 20 software developers (and a small outsourced QA team in South America) all lead by a young but very smart programmer. The team leader works directly with the other programmers to create the software.
The CEO wanted to add an experienced VPE that could direct the existing technical talent and get some control over the software development process. With business growing, the programming team could increase to 40 people. His rock star will be able to impose a predictable process, command the respect of a strong technical team while hiring more programmers.
Imagine this leader rock star working for the first CEO who wants a hands-on programmer. The leader will fumble with the coding and have no team to lead. And imagine the hands-on rock star interviewing another 20 engineers while coding the next new product feature. That’s not going to work either.
There is a 3rd kind of rock star.
Rock Star as a Global Leader
Some companies have no internal programmers and rely completely on their offshore software development team. One Accelerance client had their own development team in Ukraine. It was a remnant of an outsourcing arrangement gone bad (which is another story).
But things were still not going smoothly. The CEO needed a rock star leader that keep a global team productive and can hop on a plane to Kiev once in a while to do so.
The Part Time Rock Star
Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket with a full time VPE, hire a part time or interim VPE to get things started, and to find their own replacement.
Use the Accelerance Virtual VP of Engineering service to get your part time rock star.
A technical achiever with little concern for cultural issues, or a mature leader that is a good face-to-face manager will not manage a global software development team well. It is important to understand your situation and hire a full time VPE rock star with the kind of experience that will meet your needs.
But here's an excellent alternative.
The Part Time Rock Star
Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket with a full time VPE, you can hire a part time or interim VPE to get things started. Part of the interim VPE role is to find their own replacement.
You get the benefit of moving your programming work forward and extra experienced help with the recruiting process for your full time VPE. Otherwise you can waste a great deal of time and money waiting for the right person to come along, or worse, if you select the wrong type of VPE for your situation.
It is unlikely your part time VPE will contribute much to your source code, although some can do coding. It is more likely they will bring in their own network of programmers when needed. Some will have connections and experience using with low-cost offshore resources too.
A good part time VPE will have a well defined process for diagnosis and will create an action plan to keep your software development on-track. A system of metrics to measure performance will be devised so remedial action can be taken as needed to correct problems and issues.
The Runtime Bottom Line
There are three kinds of VP of Engineering. The kind you hire depends on your need for hands-on coding, and leadership locally or globally. It is difficult for a CEO to run a software development team while also running the company and looking for a right kind of full time VPE. You don’t have to. Hire a part time rock star VPE instead.
New Accelerance clients:
- Web development partner needed for design, development and SEO - Jakarta, Indonesia
- Microsoft ASP.NET team needed to develop new community web application - Germany
- Conversion of a Visual Basic / Microsoft Access application to C# and SQL Server - Cherry Hill, NJ
- CMMi certified partner wanted for porting and development of a software security application on Linux - Portland, OR
News and Events
April 15, 2009
Accelerance announces the publication of all hand-selected and pre-qualified global partner network member company names and websites in an online directory
on the Accelerance website. Contact multiple
partners directly with a convenient global partner contact
form. No commissions or fees.
Until next time,
Steve Mezak, CEO
Steve@Accelerance.com
Accelerance, Inc.
Risk-Free Outsourcing
+1-877-99-ACCEL (877-992-2235) x101 Toll-Free
+1-650-472-3785Global Calls + Fax
Or contact me at: http://www.Accelerance.com/contact.htm
Author of the new book -
Software without Borders: A Step-By-Step Guide to Outsourcing Your Software Development
www.SoftwareWithoutBordersBook.com
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