--- title: 7 Career Mistakes I’d Avoid If I Started Coding Again... description: A CTO with 40 years of experience shares seven career mistakes to avoid: being too helpful instead of strategic, failing to document and communicate... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/7-career-mistakes-i-d-avoid-if-i-started-coding-again-cto-advice--1yfh35yf1 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: 7 Career Mistakes I’d Avoid If I Started Coding Again (CTO Advice) | daily.dev og:description: A CTO with 40 years of experience shares seven career mistakes to avoid: being too helpful instead of strategic, failing to document and communicate... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/7-career-mistakes-i-d-avoid-if-i-started-coding-again-cto-advice--1yfh35yf1 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/1yFH35yf1.png og:image:alt: 7 Career Mistakes I’d Avoid If I Started Coding Again (CTO Advice) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 7 Career Mistakes I’d Avoid If I Started Coding Again (CTO Advice) **[The Serious CTO](https://daily.dev/sources/seriouscto)** · 4 min read · 41 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary A CTO with 40 years of experience shares seven career mistakes to avoid: being too helpful instead of strategic, failing to document and communicate achievements, not speaking the language of business metrics, avoiding organizational politics, staying too long in toxic cultures, focusing solely on technical skills over positioning, and not building external credibility. The advice emphasizes that career advancement requires strategic thinking, visibility management, business acumen, and deliberate self-promotion rather than just technical excellence. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@samd93** · 1 upvotes > All very good points however , > "avoiding organizational politics, staying too long in toxic cultures" a lot of times the politics itself is what can contribute to toxicity. Not all places but there are a good number of them. **@paulmarc** · 0 upvotes > It's at the same time refreshing and downright depressing to know that we ALL go through the same things (Corp BS, politics, etc...) no matter the region/location/culture. > > Great insight, totally agree. --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/7-career-mistakes-i-d-avoid-if-i-started-coding-again-cto-advice--1yfh35yf1) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"7 Career Mistakes I’d Avoid If I Started Coding Again (CTO Advice)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/7-career-mistakes-i-d-avoid-if-i-started-coding-again-cto-advice--1yfh35yf1","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/7-career-mistakes-i-d-avoid-if-i-started-coding-again-cto-advice--1yfh35yf1"},"datePublished":"2026-01-08T17:19:22.182Z","dateModified":"2026-01-08T17:19:42.049Z","description":"A CTO with 40 years of experience shares seven career mistakes to avoid: being too helpful instead of strategic, failing to document and communicate...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mg0xgU7dL7g/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mg0xgU7dL7g/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Serious CTO","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Serious CTO","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--dry9Wxi8--/f_auto/v1710012378/logos/seriouscto","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/seriouscto"},"commentCount":2,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/7-career-mistakes-i-d-avoid-if-i-started-coding-again-cto-advice--1yfh35yf1","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":41},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}],"keywords":"career,leadership","timeRequired":"PT4M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"7 Career Mistakes I’d Avoid If I Started Coding Again (CTO Advice)","description":"A CTO with 40 years of experience shares seven career mistakes to avoid: being too helpful instead of strategic, failing to document and communicate...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mg0xgU7dL7g/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-01-08T17:19:22.182Z","duration":"PT4M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/1yFH35yf1","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mg0xgU7dL7g"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Serious CTO","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/seriouscto"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"7 Career Mistakes I’d Avoid If I Started Coding Again (CTO Advice)"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/7-career-mistakes-i-d-avoid-if-i-started-coding-again-cto-advice--1yfh35yf1","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"All very good points however ,\n“avoiding organizational politics, staying too long in toxic cultures” a lot of times the politics itself is what can contribute to toxicity. Not all places but there are a good number of them.","datePublished":"2026-01-24T22:45:42.762Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/1yFH35yf1#c-E1BnwASjg","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam D","url":"https://daily.dev/samd93","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocJtFiOI5JRlbZjiP4qJiXoX1I2OfSxfxQHXwwOiSkePWLBYBQ=s96-c"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"It’s at the same time refreshing and downright depressing to know that we ALL go through the same things (Corp BS, politics, etc…) no matter the region/location/culture.\nGreat insight, totally agree.","datePublished":"2026-02-07T16:52:30.627Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/1yFH35yf1#c-C3AOpcoNa","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"paulmarc","url":"https://daily.dev/paulmarc","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--yFutR-QN--/f_auto/v1737446314/avatars/avatar_iHStoImiuFyQFvwEddWek"}}]} ```