The founder was explaining what he needed. "We need technical leadership," he said. "Someone to own our technical direction. Someone to make the big decisions."
I asked him what that would look like day-to-day.
Silence.
"I've been thinking we should hire a CTO," another founder told me a few weeks later. "We're at the stage where we need that."
I asked what problems a CTO would solve that his current setup didn't.
More silence.
Here's what I've noticed: founders know they need "technical leadership." But when you ask them what that actually means, most can't answer. They know the destination but not the path.
What Technical Leadership Isn't
Let me start with what technical leadership isn't.
It's not a title on a business card. It's not a corner office. It's not someone who attends leadership meetings and speaks in frameworks.
I worked with a startup that hired a "VP of Engineering" within their first year. Great credentials. Impressive resume. The founder was proud.
Six months later, nothing had changed. The VP attended meetings. He reviewed architecture diagrams. He gave presentations about "scaling."
But when production went down at 2 AM, who fixed it? The developers. When a critical feature needed to ship, who made the calls? The developers. When the codebase was confusing, who organized the refactor? The developers.
The VP was a figurehead. Leadership isn't about titles. It's about what you do when things are hard.
What Technical Leadership Actually Looks Like
Technical leadership in an early-stage startup shows up in specific behaviors:
Behavior #1: Making Decisions That Cost Money
A technical leader doesn't just recommend approaches. They commit to them. They say, "We're building it this way, and here's why."
I've watched a founder ask his technical lead which database to use. The lead hedged. "It depends. Both have pros and cons."
That's not leadership. Leadership is saying, "We're using PostgreSQL. It's the right choice for our needs. If I'm wrong, we'll fix it."
The cost of making a decision—even the wrong one—is less than the cost of making no decision at all.
Behavior #2: Protecting the Team from Chaos
A founder once told me his developers were "demotivated." They were working weekends. They were frustrated. They felt like nothing they built ever shipped.
I looked at their process. Every feature required approval from three stakeholders. Every deployment needed sign-off from the founder. Every change went through a code review that took three days.
The technical leader should have pushed back on this. They should have said, "This process is killing our team. We need to change it."
Instead, they accepted the process. They let the chaos continue. That's not leadership.
Good technical leaders protect their teams. They create space for developers to do their best work. They remove obstacles. They say no to demands that would overwhelm their team.
Behavior #3: Taking Responsibility for Outcomes
A developer on one of my client's teams made a mistake. It was a real one—a data loss incident that took hours to recover from.
The founder was furious. He wanted to know who was to blame.
The technical lead said something I've never forgotten: "The mistake happened on my watch. I'm responsible. We'll fix it and we'll make sure it doesn't happen again."
That's leadership. Not finding someone to blame, but taking ownership of the outcome.
Technical leaders don't hide behind their teams. They don't point fingers when things go wrong. They stand in front of the team and say, "I own this."
Behavior #4: Being Wrong in Public
I've watched technical leaders make bad calls. Everyone does.
The good ones admit it openly. "I thought this approach would work. I was wrong. Here's what we're going to do instead."
The bad ones double down. They defend their choices. They find reasons why the failure wasn't their fault.
Being wrong is fine. Staying wrong is not. And hiding wrong is the worst of all.
Behavior #5: Building Instead of Consulting
I worked with a startup where the technical leader spent all their time consulting. They would review designs and say what was wrong. They would assess approaches and explain the risks. They would attend meetings and offer advice.
But they rarely built anything themselves.
That's consulting. Not leadership.
A technical leader in an early-stage startup needs to build. They need to understand the codebase by contributing to it. They need to feel the pain of the problems their team faces.
You can't lead a team you don't understand. And you can't understand a team if you're always outside it, offering opinions.
The Hardest Part of Technical Leadership
The hardest part isn't making decisions. It's living with them.
I once convinced a startup to take an architectural approach I was confident about. Six months later, I was wrong. The approach created problems instead of solving them.
I could have blamed the circumstances. I could have said the market had changed. I could have deflected.
Instead, I told the founder: "I recommended this approach. I was wrong. Let's fix it."
That's what technical leadership requires. Not just making calls, but owning the consequences of those calls.
What It Looks Like Day-to-Day
If you're wondering whether you have technical leadership—or whether you need it—look at these questions:
- When something breaks at 3 AM, who fixes it?
- When a decision needs to be made about technology, who makes it?
- When the team is overwhelmed, who protects them?
- When an approach isn't working, who admits it?
If the answers are "the developers," you don't have technical leadership. You have developers who are also leaders.
That's not sustainable. At some point, someone needs to step into that leadership role. And the earlier you figure that out, the better.
The Non-Technical Founder's Challenge
If you're a non-technical founder, you can't evaluate technical leadership the way you'd evaluate sales or marketing.
You can't see the code. You can't assess the architecture. You can't know whether the decisions being made are good ones.
But you can observe behaviors:
- Does your technical person make decisions or just offer options?
- When things go wrong, do they take responsibility or find blame?
- Do they protect the team or let them get overwhelmed?
- Do they build, or do they just consult?
These behaviors transcend technical knowledge. They're leadership traits. And they're visible even if you can't evaluate the technical work itself.
The Bottom Line
Technical leadership isn't a title you hire. It's a set of behaviors you need in your organization.
You might get them from a co-founder. You might get them from an early hire. You might get them from an external consultant who embeds with your team.
But you need them. Without someone willing to make decisions, take responsibility, and protect the team, your technical work will drift. Decisions will be made by committee. Blame will flow freely. And the team will burn out.
The founders who succeed find—or develop—technical leadership early. They recognize that "having developers" isn't enough. You need someone who can lead those developers.
Not a manager. Not a title. A leader.
Need Technical Leadership Guidance?
At Startupbricks, we help startups develop the technical leadership they need—whether that's coaching your current team or embedding someone who can fill that role.
If you're not sure whether you have the technical leadership your startup needs, let's talk.