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Most leadership advice comes packaged as a rule: give people autonomy, don’t micromanage, always be the coach. But teams are rarely that simple. Riaan Nel calls this “silver bullet thinking”, the belief that there’s one right answer to every leadership challenge.
As a Fractional CTO, Riaan steps into new teams and contexts every few months, from startups scaling beyond product-market fit to companies suddenly needing stronger engineering leadership. He takes the time to understand why a team works the way it does before deciding what needs to change, rather than arriving with a ready-made playbook.
In this AMA, Riaan will unpack some of the leadership myths that quietly get engineering teams into trouble, from managers who “code their way out of trouble” to the belief that adding more people will get a deadline back on track.
– Riaan Nel, Fractional CTO
🔑 Leadership isn’t the only promotion that counts: Riaan turned down his first leadership opportunity because he wasn’t ready and challenges the idea that management is the only path to more money, title, or recognition for strong engineers.
🔑 Don’t code your way out of a leadership problem: The instinct that made you a great engineer — solve it yourself, work longer, take on more — can quickly become a trap when you become a manager. The job changes, and so do the tools you need to succeed.
🔑 Direct feedback is part of caring: One of Riaan’s early management lessons was learning that being too gentle for too long doesn’t help anyone. Caring about your people and challenging them when something isn’t working can — and should — coexist.
View our hub for practical lessons, honest conversations, and actionable resources to help you lead stronger engineering teams, navigate AI, and grow as a tech leader.
Riaan has spent his career - as a software engineer, architect, leader, consultant, and CTO - building systems, leading teams, and solving problems. Passionate about business, technology, and leadership, he works as a Fractional CTO and advisor, helping startups and established companies to build strong teams and technology practices that align with their business goals. Outside of work, he's a husband, avid reader, and purveyor of dad jokes.
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Salary discussions are some of the most critical discussions to happen between managers and employees – but often the constraints are already set in company wide budget meetings.
Managers who know how to advocate for their team members are better set up to navigate these budget conversations. A solid budget can make or break how satisfied your new hires and existing team members are with their compensation. To make matters even more complicated, salary is an individual experience that should be tackled on a case-by-case basis.
Should you match a counter offer? Should team members with similar roles earn the same? Making mistakes when it comes to salary can be really painful and can cost you high performing team members in the long run.
In this event, we’ll deep dive into these challenges to set you up to win in salary conversations with your tech team.
Join the conversation with fellow tech leaders to delve into:
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