❄️ Engineering Strategy, Fixing Flats, Compensation, Team Traditions, Dogma, Prompt Caching, Plain Language: TMW #462
Happy holidays from us all at CTO Craft!
🌪️
Massive thanks to Noxus for sponsoring this week's TMW - AI Co-workers that turn your inbox into action, from triaging tickets, resolving complaints to completing refunds, bookings, and claims.
Hello there!
So, 2025 has come to a close as all years must, and we've been looking back at all the changes and growth here at CTO Craft...
- The Community grew...
- The CTO Craft Community Slack grew by almost 30%!
- TMW saw a 15% increase, with thousands and thousands of new subscribers reading every single Monday
- Our local hosts ran 56 Mixer events, with over 1,500 attendees in 28 cities around the world - there are loads coming up in January
- We ran a plethora of amazing events, including:
- Four conferences, in London, Berlin and Toronto and our first industry-specific Con for fintech leaders, with over 1100 attendees in total
- Several online and in-person Bytes, mostly sponsored events
- Two Campus Deep Dives, where we delved into Managing Upwards and Emotional Intelligence
- The team grew! We welcomed Rhys, Lucy and Oskar to the sponsorships, events and marketing teams respectively - it's great to have you all with us
We've got an even bigger year coming up, with more Cons and Mixers, the reintroduction of our Community Bytes and something new... Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming Conversations Roadshow - we'll be bringing our very popular roundtables format to cities all over the world in 2026, from Sweden to the USA and back again.
OK, let's get on with the links! From all of us at CTO Craft, have a wonderful holiday season, and see you in the new year!
Andy @ CTO Craft
CTO Craft Bytes: The CTO to Founder Path | CTO Craft
Every founder’s story begins with a simple question — what if I built something of my own? For many CTOs, the leap from leading technology to leading a company feels both thrilling and uncertain. This session invites you to explore that turning point: when years of technical leadership, product intuition, and team-building experience merge into the drive to create something from scratch.
CTO Craft Con - Dates for Your Diary
CTO Craft Con: London
Join CTO Craft Con: London - an intimate, community-centered gathering for engineering leaders to connect, learn through insightful sessions, and build real peer relationships in a supportive environment.
CTO Craft Con: Toronto
Join CTO Craft Con: Toronto- an intimate, community-centered gathering for engineering leaders to connect, learn through insightful sessions, and build real peer relationships in a supportive environment.
CTO Craft Con: Europe 2026
Join CTO Craft Con Europe 2026 in Amsterdam - an intimate, community-centered gathering for engineering leaders to connect, learn through insightful sessions, and build real peer relationships in a supportive environment.
SPONSORED
Rethinking Buy vs. Build AI Infrastructure
“Build vs buy” sounds like a question of cost or speed, but when it comes to
AI infrastructure and platforms, it’s really about control, governance, and scale.
Download the full white paper from Noxus to explore the trade-offs and make the right choice for your organisation.
Leadership, Strategy & Business
Engineering Strategy beyond Tech and Control
Identifying what’s necessary to overcome the high stakes challenge
Aleix Morgadas
The Principle That Will Power the Next Wave of AI (And Transform Your Business) - Organizational Physics
Summary Insight: Why the era of ‘brute force’ scaling is ending—and how to design your business like a living system to win what comes next. Key Takeaways: Biology’s Rule: Every successful organism survives by minimizing “Free Energy” (surprise). Your business must do the same. AI as Amplifier: AI magnifies your existing structure. If you are […]
Lex Sisney
The plan is the program
Issue 276: Knowledge engineering and plans as an atomic unit
David Hoang
Get Beyond Fixing Flats - Leadership Freak
“The only thing on Earth that never lies to you is your calendar.” Tom Peters Recurring meetings typically deal with day-to-day issues. Leaders spend up to 80% of their time fixing flats. You’re a maintenance worker when you spend your day fixing flats. Less Time Fixing Flats…
Dan Rockwell
Culture, People & Teams
The Compensation Commandments
Compensation is difficult – check out these rules on how to design compensation for your team.
Stay SaaSy
RDEL #123: How differently do software developers perceive the same communication?
Study identifies systematic perception gaps affecting two-thirds of software project communication, regardless of developer experience or background
Research-Driven Engineering Leadership
End of Year Pay Report 2025 | Levels.fyi
View compensation trends, top paying companies, cities & more
Designing Team Traditions That Actually Fit Your Team
Team traditions aren’t one-size-fits-all. Here’s how to choose and design traditions that match your team’s culture, communication style, and bandwidth — and why that fit matters more than the tradition itself.
Christie Cosky
Technology, Operations & Delivery
5 engineering dogmas it’s time to retire
A few months ago, I wrote about 13 software engineering laws, which are observations about how software projects behave.
Anton Zaides
The cost of producing code is approaching zero
Note: Caveats apply
Jeff
Why I don’t like “Correction of Error”
Like many companies, AWS has a defined process for reviewing incidents. They call their process Correction of Error. For example, there’s a page on Correction of Error in their Well-Architect…
Lorin Hochstein
Prompt caching: 10x cheaper LLM tokens, but how? | ngrok blog
A far more detailed explanation of prompt caching than anyone asked for.
ngrok
Stress, Wellbeing & Growth
The importance of plain language
When it comes to business communications, presenting information in plain language that readers understand the first time they read it is far more effective than resorting to jargon or complex terminology.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis
Reducing Employee Burnout and Attrition: Strategies for creating workplaces where people can do their best work, and stay...
Reducing Employee Burnout and Attrition: Strategies for creating workplaces where people can do their best work, and stay…
Steven John
Your Strength Got You Here, but Doing The Opposite Will Take You Farther
Your natural tendencies work brilliantly in the right context, but real growth comes from learning when to flip them.
Dave Anderson
That’s it!
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Have an amazing week!
Andy