/cto-advisor

name: "cto-advisor"
description: "CTO decisions: tech debt, architecture direction, scaling the engineering team, technology evaluation, DORA metrics. Use whenever the user asks whether to rewrite, how to grow the eng team or which tech to bet on."
license: MIT
metadata:
  version: 2.0.0
  author: Alireza Rezvani
  category: c-level
  domain: cto-leadership
  updated: 2026-03-05
  python-tools: tech_debt_analyzer.py, team_scaling_calculator.py
  frameworks: architecture-decisions, engineering-metrics, technology-evaluation

CTO Advisor

Technical leadership frameworks for architecture, engineering teams, technology strategy, and technical decision-making.

Keywords

CTO, chief technology officer, tech debt, technical debt, architecture, engineering metrics, DORA, team scaling, technology evaluation, build vs buy, cloud migration, platform engineering, AI/ML strategy, system design, incident response, engineering culture

Quick Start

python scripts/tech_debt_analyzer.py      # Assess technical debt severity and remediation plan
python scripts/team_scaling_calculator.py  # Model engineering team growth and cost

Core Responsibilities

1. Technology Strategy

Align technology investments with business priorities.

**Strategy components:**

• Technology vision (3-year: where the platform is going)
• Architecture roadmap (what to build, refactor, or replace)
• Innovation budget (10-20% of engineering capacity for experimentation)
• Build vs buy decisions (default: buy unless it's your core IP)
• Technical debt strategy (management, not elimination)

See `references/technology_evaluation_framework.md` for the full evaluation framework.

2. Engineering Team Leadership

Scale the engineering org's productivity — not individual output.

**Scaling engineering:**

• Hire for the next stage, not the current one
• Every 3x in team size requires a reorg
• Manager:IC ratio: 5-8 direct reports optimal
• Senior:junior ratio: at least 1:2 (invert and you'll drown in mentoring)

**Culture:**

• Blameless post-mortems (incidents are system failures, not people failures)
• Documentation as a first-class citizen
• Code review as mentoring, not gatekeeping
• On-call that's sustainable (not heroic)

See `references/engineering_metrics.md` for DORA metrics and the engineering health dashboard.

3. Architecture Governance

Create the framework for making good decisions — not making every decision yourself.

**Architecture Decision Records (ADRs):**

• Every significant decision gets documented: context, options, decision, consequences
• Decisions are discoverable (not buried in Slack)
• Decisions can be superseded (not permanent)

See `references/architecture_decision_records.md` for ADR templates and the decision review process.

4. Vendor & Platform Management

Every vendor is a dependency. Every dependency is a risk.

**Evaluation criteria:** Does it solve a real problem? Can we migrate away? Is the vendor stable? What's the total cost (license + integration + maintenance)?

5. Crisis Management

Incident response, security breaches, major outages, data loss.

**Your role in a crisis:** Ensure the right people are on it, communication is flowing, and the business is informed. Post-crisis: blameless retrospective within 48 hours.

Workflows

Tech Debt Assessment Workflow

**Step 1 — Run the analyzer**

python scripts/tech_debt_analyzer.py --output report.json

**Step 2 — Interpret results** The analyzer produces a severity-scored inventory. Review each item against:

• Severity (P0–P3): how much is it blocking velocity or creating risk?
• Cost-to-fix: engineering days estimated to remediate
• Blast radius: how many systems / teams are affected?

**Step 3 — Build a prioritized remediation plan** Sort by: `(Severity × Blast Radius) / Cost-to-fix` — highest score = fix first. Group items into: (a) immediate sprint, (b) next quarter, (c) tracked backlog.

**Step 4 — Validate before presenting to stakeholders**

• [ ] Every P0/P1 item has an owner and a target date
• [ ] Cost-to-fix estimates reviewed with the relevant tech lead
• [ ] Debt ratio calculated: maintenance work / total engineering capacity (target: < 25%)
• [ ] Remediation plan fits within capacity (don't promise 40 points of debt reduction in a 2-week sprint)

**Example output — Tech Debt Inventory:**

Item                  | Severity | Cost-to-Fix | Blast Radius | Priority Score
----------------------|----------|-------------|--------------|---------------
Auth service (v1 API) | P1       | 8 days      | 6 services   | HIGH
Unindexed DB queries  | P2       | 3 days      | 2 services   | MEDIUM
Legacy deploy scripts | P3       | 5 days      | 1 service    | LOW

---

ADR Creation Workflow

**Step 1 — Identify the decision** Trigger an ADR when: the decision affects more than one team, is hard to reverse, or has cost/risk implications > 1 sprint of effort.

**Step 2 — Draft the ADR** Use the template from `references/architecture_decision_records.md`:

Title: [Short noun phrase]
Status: Proposed | Accepted | Superseded
Context: What is the problem? What constraints exist?
Options Considered:
  - Option A: [description] — TCO: $X | Risk: Low/Med/High
  - Option B: [description] — TCO: $X | Risk: Low/Med/High
Decision: [Chosen option and rationale]
Consequences: [What becomes easier? What becomes harder?]

**Step 3 — Validation checkpoint (before finalizing)**

• [ ] All options include a 3-year TCO estimate
• [ ] At least one "do nothing" or "buy" alternative is documented
• [ ] Affected team leads have reviewed and signed off
• [ ] Consequences section addresses reversibility and migration path
• [ ] ADR is committed to the repository (not left in a doc or Slack thread)

**Step 4 — Communicate and close** Share the accepted ADR in the engineering all-hands or architecture sync. Link it from the relevant service's README.

---

Build vs Buy Analysis Workflow

**Step 1 — Define