Can someone explain to me how is this possible in corporate america

I literally have no idea how is it possible for someone to come from a complete non-stem degree, have no actual engineering background and land as a CTO of a very big SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT company, please tell me how can I do this please

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It's not common but it's not out of this world. 

  1. Non-STEM degree -- This person studied applied mathematics and statistics. Even if they don't know how to code, they have the foundation to solve complex logic problems that a data ops team (their customers) need addressed.
  2. Product management -- Given that it's a dev/data ops focused company, they likely require higher technical aptitude from their PMs. They lead all of Dev Ex and Observability so they're deeply aware of what to prioritize that will actually unlock revenue.
  3. CTO role -- You're not coding as the CTO at this level. You're aligning on the technical roadmap for the company and tying engineering efforts to initiatives that drive growth and scalability. 

How can you do this? 

Stop whining, learn about how engineering organizations work, go join a company and work your way up to an eng manager/PM/a role on the EPD team, and show that you can make an impact as an IC and eventually a manager. 

 

Looks like this person has 3 undergraduate degrees (if I'm understanding it correctly, not a triple major in a single degree, but three different, separate degrees?) from SMU and maintained a 3.9 GPA (probably relatively easy to maintain a high GPA at SMU compared to more selective schools, but still impressive), so he is clearly a smart and hardworking guy. Applied Math and Stats are solidly STEM, so I'm not sure why you think he has "a complete non-STEM degree." You don't need to get a degree in computer science to learn how to write code.

 

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