Tech companies aren’t much without a good tech team — and having someone to lead them is just as crucial. From finding the right people to add to the team to making key decisions about a project’s stack, a company’s CTO is in charge of ensuring the company’s creating the best product possible.
We spoke to the CTOs of some of Colorado’s top tech companies about what they're working on. Here's what they had to say:
Edward Kim on the future of HR…
“I think there is a fundamental change in the way that employers are viewing the meaning of HR. Humans are not resources. They're people who, deep inside, want work on something they care about, with people they enjoy spending time with. If employers build work environments where this can happen, employees thrive and do amazing things together for the company. Whereas employers once saw HR as mainly ‘check-the-box,’ necessary evils to stay compliant with the law, they now are starting to see it as an opportunity to help build great environments at work. We at Gusto are anticipating this by building things like payroll, benefits and HR in such a way that they're not just as ‘tools’ to stay compliant, but as ‘advisors’ that can help guide employers and employees to make decisions to build better work environments, and subsequently a better life.”
Gabe Hesse on taking time for community…
“The Colorado community is still relatively small so I really focus on taking care of my relationships here. It is as simple as reserving an hour a week to spend catching up over coffee or beers, emphatically saying ‘YES!’ to anyone asking for help or guidance and generally not being a jerk to the people I interact with.”
Sherri Hammons on the value of collaboration…
“We are active in the community and always willing to help entrepreneurs. I sit on the TiE Rockies Board and mentor some startups. While IQN primarily targets the larger enterprise, we want to help the Colorado startup community become successful and create next generation products that we can use and collaborate on. If you want to collaborate on something to do with our space, give us a call!”
Bill Bell on the challenges of managing a team…
“As part of building out services, it is easy to think about removing the business layer and just putting in stateless RESTful services. However, the challenge is to take advantage of new architectures as you do this migration. At Healthgrades, we have a philosophy that each team is 90 percent autonomous and that we provide oversight as needed. This oversight is challenging as you balance reusability and directional guidance and the goal of test, learn and repeat.”
Peter Sperry on Colorado’s talent pool…
“Colorado is a great community in which to start and run your business — especially from a tech perspective. There are a ton of great ideas and energy within the community, especially around startups. There’s also a fairly young talent pool, so finding people to jump in with both feet is a lot more straightforward than in (perhaps) other communities.”
Photos via featured companies
Have a CTO you’d like to nominate? Email us.
