Unless you're at a very small company, CTOs set technical vision, choose high level tooling strategy and outline engineering culture in broad strokes, but the nitty gritty of process will be from an engineering director or other role below the CTO. The CTO will probably provide feedback if needed, but they're not in the weeds and won't be able to see problems unless they're raised.
You are correct, my post was more for the situation where the CTO is also the engineering director but in larger orgs that is not usually so.
I do think, however, that the coding CTO is not the way to go about to change the process. If it's too cumbersome, the CTO should talk with engineering director to find a way to make it less so, not just bypass the process.
Surely there is room for both. Most people don't found companies because they want to sit around on their ass. They're typically driven and do'ers. If things are not working as they want, and folks are not being responsive enough... they'll do it themselves and that is ok. After all THEY founded the company.
> If things are not working as they want, and folks are not being responsive enough... they'll do it themselves and that is ok.
If the CTO has rank then why not work to solve the unresponsiveness or undesirable things?
If someone--even a founder--can act as a loose cannon then there is a risk that they'll introduce problems like instability, security vulnerabilities, or unnecessary conflict or resentment. Compliance programs like SOC and PCI don't look fondly on staff bypassing SDLC processes because of those risks.
