A Life Engineered $1.25 Billion CTO: The Career Mistake That Cost Me 9 Years
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Mar 2, 2026 
Tuomas Artman, CTO and co-founder of Linear and former Uber engineer, on building product-first infrastructure and developer tools. He recounts leaving university, the nine-year career regret that pushed him to Silicon Valley, and the tradeoffs between management and individual contribution. He explains Linear’s zero-bug, quality-first strategy and how AI agents will reshape product orchestration.
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Prioritize Mission Over Promotions
- Choose a company whose product mission you genuinely care about and work on that mission instead of optimizing for promotions.
- Tuomas says Europeans should prioritize getting into Silicon Valley or a US-based team to learn the mindset and scale their impact.
Nine Years Lost To Consulting Regret
- Tuomas regrets spending nine years doing general consulting in Finland because it felt like wasted time and limited long-term growth.
- He left consulting after realizing he wanted to build something of his own and moved toward startups abroad.
Tried Management At Uber Then Returned To Coding
- Tuomas accepted a manager role at Uber, disliked frontline management, and later returned to IC work where he felt more effective.
- He describes frontline management as political shielding rather than building product, which led him back to coding.