I'm currently working with a startup on a contract developer basis, evenings and weekends.
They have one other developer, who also happens to be the CTO. There is also a CEO and a CFO, who aren't very technical, and more focused on the business aspect.
The CTO is a super nice guy, with lots of confidence, but also just out of University, with basically no real world coding experience.
I feel as though he maybe bolstered his CV during the interview process, and passed himself as more competent than he actually is.
We are building an MVP, which I have basically built entirely myself during the evenings and sometimes weekends working with these guys.
During the day the CTO has been tinkering with some CSS/HTML, and has improved the appearance of some of the components used on the app.
In regards to who has contributed what, it's probably a 90/10 split.
In regards to myself, I have a lot of experience working well with other developers. I'm not some lone wolf type, I have a proven track record of working successfully with others, using source control, doing code reviews, participating in stand ups etc.
However I am used to working with people with a certain level of skill/competence, as opposed to with complete beginners.
For example, the CTO spent has spent the last week wrestling with Git. Basically every time he goes near Git it's a bit of a disaster. A week ago, I recommended a good Pluralsight course which had helped me learn Git. When I asked today, when he was again wrestling with a simple Git issue if he had watched the course, the response was yes, I took a look at it, it didn't seem very good.
It's become really obvious to the co-founders that the CTO is out of his depth.
To make matters worse, they share a space with about 8 other start-ups (in a tech-accelerator type environment) and it seems as though it has become obvious to the developers at the other start-ups that there is a problem, and as is to be expected, people are starting to gossip (for want of a better term).
Also in this shared space are potential investors, and other local people who are influential in the IT industry.
In this sort of environment, you don't have much privacy as a company. Everybody knows and sees what every other company is doing, and everybody talks to everybody else! Therefore I need to tread very carefully!
Today I was straight up asked by the founders of the company what value, if any, the CTO is providing, and I struggled to answer in a positive light.
I don't know what to do! Ideally I want to help to get this guy into a position where he can genuinely provide value, but we also have a very short runway.
My priority is to get the MVP into shape so when we pitch to investors they like it, and we have limited time.
Time I spend teaching the CTO the basics of coding/source control etc is time not spent on the product.
I am trying to handle this in in the least explosive way possible, and have no idea what to do.
I don't want to burn any bridges, and also don't want to leave the founders without a developer during the day, as it is a tech accelerator program, which would look really bad, and could even lead to them being removed from the program for not meeting the requirements.
Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!