The CTO needs to be part of the executive team, so they don't have the luxury of ignoring the business objectives. The CTO should be able to make a business case for investing in quality engineering. Quality engineering has benefits for the business, but they are not always worth the price.
Engineers are the only ones who can advocate for pristine code without tradeoffs, and I would argue that great engineers care enough about the business to not do that. Really great engineers just build the pristine code in the same amount of time regular engineers would have taken to get a simple version almost-working.
I actually like the idea of "technical henchman", though!
Really great engineers just build the pristine code in the same amount of time regular engineers would have taken to get a simple version almost-working.
This has been key in my experience. I'll build a feature that is flexible, clean, well factored, and completely documented in the same time it requires someone else to make a half working mess.
CTO's as I'd like to understand them bring the bar as high as they can within business constraints. Doing any less is accepting mediocrity. Is that something you'd want in an executive leadership role?
Engineers are the only ones who can advocate for pristine code without tradeoffs, and I would argue that great engineers care enough about the business to not do that. Really great engineers just build the pristine code in the same amount of time regular engineers would have taken to get a simple version almost-working.
I actually like the idea of "technical henchman", though!