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🦐 Middle Loops, Gut Decision Matrix, OWASP for Agents, Code Review Bottlenecks, Moral Authority: TMW #473

Post-conference glow... And another coming up in May!
🧠
Thank you to Damilah for sponsoring this week's issue - experts in partner-shoring, helping ambitious technology leaders deliver from vision to value.

Hello, hello, hello, welcome to the week!

What an incredible week we had last week - 450 leaders from all around the world joined us in London for what was absolutely our best CTO Craft Con so far. A huge thank you to all our amazing speakers, roundtable and workshop facilitators and hosts, our MC the dazzling Neeha Curtis, the wonderful sponsors and everyone in the CTO Craft team who helped make it such a success - you're all incredible.

No rest for us though! The next CTO Craft Con is just around the corner, and this time we'll be back in Toronto for our second North American conference. There's still time to pick up a ticket, and we'd love to see you there!

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: Toronto 2026

On top of that (!) we'll be launching our Conversations Roadshow on April 14th in Stockholm - if you'd like to experience the power of our intimate roundtable discussions with subject matter expert facilitators, you should definitely be there:

Conversations Roadshow: Stockholm
Join CTO Craft in Stockholm for the Conversations Roadshow with peer led roundtables, senior facilitators, networking, and insights you’ll use straight away.
Conversations Roadshow

That's it, let's look at some links....

Andy @ CTO Craft

PS. Don't forget to take part in our annual Compensation Survey - every data point helps:

CTO Craft: 2026 Compensation Survey
CTO Craft alongside Albany Partners are conducting a survey on Compensation norms across tech leadership.

CTO Craft Con - Dates for Your Diary

Also, check out our new Conversations Roadshow, where we'll be bringing leaders together for guided roundtable discussions on a wide range of engineering leadership topics. Coming to Stockholm, Berlin, London and NYC in 2026!

SPONSORED
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Engineering 2028: Leading Human + AI Teams Responsibly

In this fresh report built in collaboration with CTO Craft, we explore how AI is reshaping engineering leadership and team design. Based on insights, the report finds that AI is expanding what engineering teams can deliver rather than reducing headcount, with 92% already using AI in delivery processes.

By 2028, leaders expect realistic productivity gains of 11–50%, not the “10x developer” leap often discussed. Engineers will increasingly orchestrate AI systems rather than write code alone, while critical systems will rely on human-in-the-loop oversight. 

Read the Full Report Here

CTO Craft Mixers in March

See the whole Mixer calendar here - not in your city yet? Drop us a line!

Reads of the Week

The Middle Loop - Annie Vella
Early in my career, I took a job as a software developer at a large consultancy. Turns out the work mostly involved fixing other people’s Access databases by right-clicking and hitting “repair”. I lasted about a month before I thanked them for the opportunity, handed in my resignation, and moved on. The point is: what you spend your time on defines what you think about. What you think about is what you practice. And what you practice is what you build skill on. The title said “software developer” but the daily work said something else entirely.
Annie VellaAnnie Vella
The Director to CTO Path: How to Follow It, or How to Mentor It
Why the leap from Director to CTO is really three distinct shifts, and how to start making them before you have the title
It Depends: Lessons in Technology LeadershipKevin Goldsmith

Leadership, Strategy & Business

How Do You Know If You’re a Good Leader?
The hardest performance review is your own
Fish Food for ThoughtMike Fisher
The strategy lifecycle and adoption. Post I
How adoption will determine the lifecycle of the strategy
Engineering StrategyAleix Morgadas
The Gut Decision Matrix: When to Trust Instinct and Intuition
The Gut Decision Matrix helps you interpret your automatic responses before acting on them. Next time you experience fear, attraction, suspicion, or confidence, take a moment to ask yourself these two questions: Is this instinct or intuition? Are you in immediate danger or is this a more complex situation?
Ness LabsAnne-Laure Le Cunff
Management In The Age Of AI
Management is dead. Long live managers.
Stay SaaSyStay SaaSy

Culture, People & Teams

Learned Helplessness at Work: Removing Hierarchy Isn’t Enough
Why do self-management transformations fail? Discover how learned helplessness at work silently rebuilds hierarchy, and what it takes to truly overcome it.
Corporate Rebels
Fear is Destroying Your Org - Yaniv Preiss
While some leaders believe they are running a well-oiled machine, they might be unknowingly running an engine fueled by fear. When fear becomes the primary
Yaniv PreissYaniv Preiss
Startups Should Evaluate Engineers Differently From Big Companies
Use a Big Tech hiring process, get a Big Tech engineer. But is that what your startup needs?
Engineering LeadershipGregor Ojstersek
Slow down to speed up - The Engineering Manager
When AI can build anything in hours, getting the requirements wrong costs more than ever. Learn when deliberate slowness pays off.
The Engineering ManagerJames Stanier

Technology, Operations & Delivery

OWASP Top 10 Agents & AI Vulnerabilities (2026 Cheat Sheet)
A pragmatic engineering guide and cheat sheet for the OWASP Top 10 AI, OWASP Top 10 LLM, and OWASP Top 10 Agents vulnerabilities
Alex Ewerlöf NotesAlex Ewerlöf
AI-Assisted Development is the New Test Automation
If you ignore the tools that scale your impact, you don’t protect your craft, you just limit your scope. We’ve seen this play out before. Why are we doing it again?
The Quality Duck - Technology Leadership founded on QualityStuart
Addressing the code review bottleneck
Basic habits, advanced AI, and when to skip the review altogether
High-Impact EngineeringRoman Nikolaev
Inside the Archive: The Tech Behind Your 2025 Wrapped Highlights | Spotify Engineering
Every year, Spotify Wrapped gives hundreds of millions of listeners a snapshot of your year in listening. For 2025 Wrapped, we wanted to go deeper. What if we could identify interesting listening moments from your year, and tell you a story about them? The day you discovered that artist that changed everything. The day you played nothing but “yearning” music for six hours straight. The day your music taste took a hard left turn.
Spotify EngineeringYoshnee Raveendran (Senior Engineer)

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

The Sacrifices of Moral Authority - Leadership Freak
Many have titles. Some have skill. Only elite leaders have moral authority. Moral authority is influence earned because others trust your motives, character, and intentions. “The essence of moral authority is sacrifice.” Robert Greenleaf The less you hunt for status, the more you find. Here are 3 Sacrifices of Moral Authority.
Leadership FreakDan Rockwell
Lesson One: The Human Energy Crisis - Scott H Young
I’m excited to announce a new course I have coming out next week, Everyday Energy. It is a three-month program designed to help you build new practices into your life to feel more energetic and complete meaningful work. This course builds on the topics I’ve been writing about over the past few months. It’s not […]
Scott H YoungScott Young
How To Pursue Excellence Without Driving Everyone Crazy – Scott Cochrane
Scott Cochrane
Burnout Changes You. Here Is How to Change Back.
Burnout & Identity Series Part III
MediumDesiree Guinto

That’s it!

If you’d like to be considered for the free CTO Craft Community, fill in your details here, and we’ll be in touch!

Campus by CTO Craft: The Go-to Resource for Senior Technology Leaders
Created for CTOs, by CTOs: A transformative learning community for senior technology leaders in startups and scale-ups
CTO Craft Campus

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Have an amazing week!

Andy

Published by:

Andy Skipper