I am interested to become the CTO of a large/mid size company. I am 26. I have an undergrad in CS. I am looking for tips which can help me become a CTO.
As an aspirational goal or as an actual opportunity at hand?<p>In the latter case I'd say you'd have quite a daunting task ahead of you. Without any previous management experience and existing leadership skills becoming the CTO of a company of roughly 250 people (which is the definition of a larger SME) might be biting off more than you can chew.<p>If it's more of an aspirational goal you should focus on people skills first and foremost. Being able to present and generally communicate complex technical matters in a way different target audiences (engineers, management, customers) will understand you is one of the most important traits of a successful CTO. Staying on top of current technological development and trends on a general level is crucial, too.<p>As a CTO you don't have to know how to exactly use a specific technology but you have to be able to decide which technology in a particular area will be most suitable for your organisation.<p>Finally, if you take your job as a CTO seriously you most certainly won't code or do any day-to-day engineering anymore. A CTO who still codes is an anti-pattern and almost always a sign that there's something seriously wrong with the company.
High variance strategy: cofound a startup or be the first engineering hire at a startup. Work your ass off and hope that the startup becomes a mid-sized company.<p>You'll need to scale along with the company - in the early days you'll be writing a ton of code, but once the company is "mid-sized" your role is going to be managing people. As someone else mentioned, if at that point you're still coding either you're a terrible CTO or you're working for a terrible company (or both). :)