18 months ago I was promoted Technical Lead of the team where I was working as Senior Fullstack Engineer.
To some extent nothing really changed in...
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Great post!
When I was transitioning from senior dev to a leading role and later on additionally to a scrum master, I was falling down a hole of "I feel unproductive" and felt like I had meetings all day now and didn't do really much productive. The section about that in your post phrased it perfectly and I can confirm to you that it takes some time but you'll get used to it and when you have the chance to code or be productive yourself in any way then, it'll be on an even higher level because of all the learnings you get from coaching others and from watching their growth :)
thanks for your comments.
as i wrote in the end of my post.. i have to repeat those things to myself often, because I must say I still have some doubts. and no week passes without me thinking... maybe it would be better if I just code. that is what i do best.
but then I also see the impact I have as a technical lead, sometime is a question I make during a meeting, sometimes is just giving an hint on some technical issue, and I realize how much time and effort I spared to my team with that.
Yeah. I perfectly know those leads that are far away from the trenches, had many in my career and I definetely don't want to become one of them. Will try my best, and if doesn't work, I can always be back to coding. ( on the other hand, tech leads and engineering managers are needed, so why not trying to be one that is really useful, not only to the company but also to the team members? )
This is a great response.
Just because many have failed at the role doesn't mean we have to keep failing. It just means we need to grow from their mistakes.
I've been working 7 years as a software engineer, and I've been programming for 15 years now. I've seen outdated washed out leaders that just fill their spot and warm their chairs, and I've been honored with bright committed involved tech leads that have inspired and pushed me above and beyond.
I can only aspire to be a fraction as good as they are, and I'll be happy with my role.
They weren't the best at the minutia of day to day coding examples, but the moral in their decision making was impeccable, their ethics were remarkable, and they are to this day at the top of their game in knowledge of design patterns and best practices. All of this is framework agnostic and goes beyond coding. And that is what to me makes a great tech leader awesome.
This is really great, thanks for sharing your experience. Slow down to go faster really works in various aspects other than leading a team, that I've tried 👏
Last year I was thrown into this position when the start up I was working for grew it's frontend team from 1 (just me) to 4 or 5 at a time.
This year I've been naturally gravitating to this role after joining another startup where the same thing happened, except that the original front end engineer evolved into eng director, and the frontend team is now made of 10 engineers and growing.
The challenges are twice as daunting with twice as many people, and I've found this article are opening and inspiring.
I love articles that are open and blunt about their sources, same as with books where I can trace a theory all the way back to its hypothesis. It makes me feel less stupid and more connected to the writer. They are people just like me, that read and think just like me, and don't come up with answers out of thin air.
Great job sir, thanks for the amazing read! I am looking forward for the next article on this series!
wow. congratulations for your quick progression!
Thanks for your kind words
I love it, especially the part on delegation. I had trouble in learning to delegate and give up on my urge in taking the bull by the horn by yourself.
Probably this is the hardest thing in transitioning, knowing you can do better and like you said, taking the bull by the horns. Been transitioning for 6 years by now and still doing so. I may offer a direction if that's ok with you. If the situation demands it, go ride the bull, but use it from a "leading by example" standpoint. Use that situation to teach, to show, get constant feedback while doing so, involve your team members in the resolution, show how responsibility (opinionated, of course) works, describe what you are doing and the principles behind. A good real-life battle is an tremendous use case for others to get a glimpse, a direction, an advice, a resolution for them to digest. Who knows, next time you'll end up with things delegating by themselves.
Agree! Thanks for the advice!
Thanks. I still think I have a lot to learn before I can say I have learned to delegate..😅
Yeah it's a ongoing process that i am still learning as well.
I'll share this. On my team a couple years ago in a retro, someone had an idea to maybe make one of us be labeled a "tech lead" and nominated person X. We all agreed, as this individual had some of the most experience with the code base, was bright and well organized.
He later moved on from the team and co-worker Y was given the "title". I did not congratulate him like everyone else did because I didn't know if he even wanted the role. He later told me he was thrown into it.
I myself am a natural born leader as my 4th grade teacher once told me and have been so in many different capacities for many years. Now I am Senior Software Engineer with over a decade of industry experience working independently single handedly built web sites/applications for clients and their business, worked on several start ups, contract and FT in large corporations and with dozens of developers across multiple teams globally.
I'll admit, I felt I was the one to assume the "title" next. But this wasn't an official promotion with a pay raise. Simply a title. Which really turned into becoming the "meeting man" and one to be called on at all times. He is no more talented or "rock star" than me or the others, but he's great and supportive so don't get me wrong.
I knew what this meant though for him or me. Less coding, more meetings and feeling less productive. I really enjoy coding and leading, and I do so by example. For me, all day meetings don't equal productivity the same way as does turning in clean code, improving processes and shipping new features/products to millions of users.
So in essence, we have two tech leads. One takes the meetings, one's in the tranches fighting for us engineers, for our developer experience, to have our voices heard and providing unique opportunities to learn and grow by example. Some people are just built different, what can I say 🤷🏽♂️
Now, if I had been asked or thrown into it, knowing what sacrifices come along, to give up part of my joy for more meetings, I'd need fair compensation.
To some important points on this post, I've too learned to be patient and when to pick and choose my battles. And overtime the ideas and proposals I dump on everyone fast out of the gate, some got pushed back but have gradually come to fruition and made positive impacts.
I even received a spotlight award last year announced in our department weekly standup from anonymous electors which came unexpectedly.
When you do good, people notice quietly and good comes back to you. Which in my case the form of a Snappy Gift, bonuses and new base salary only within two years of joining the company. 🙏🏽
Still coding and leading concurrently 🙂
thank you very much for you long comment.
i agree, and found myself in a similar position for many years. then i was finally offered the title and the compensation ;-)
Though sometimes I fear I could / should have stepped up in the career ladder before, I am happy that did not happen, because I had the opportunity to get much better as an engineer and to grow as a person.
I see myself in this article.
I recently was promoted as tech lead and my challenge now it is be mentor. Everybody ask me if this “evoluation” changed my routine, I always reply: no. Because I keep writing code, I still reading codes to review but now I need to change my mind because it’s now I need to make more mentoring and teaching than write code.
Thanks for your article. I bookmarked that it I will read again in many moments.
The hardest part is embracing this
Having that feeling to still be as technically productive as you were when you were an individual contributor can be mentally stressing, this is the huge problem I had the first time I took up this role from my former employer.
Thanks for sharing this insights.
Inspiring post!
So now you are the manager of a football team with a gang of individuals each having strengths and weaknesses. And you put them on the lineup according to the needs of the match and their personal skills. You're right, don't train a striker to a defender. Train the striker to shoot more precisely, with more power, and to automate his moves.
All the best and keep your mindset and attitude.
thanks for your comment. and very fitting analogy with the football team.
Great post on an important topic. I've seen it(and done it myself) where devs focus too much on coding when they should instead be leading the their team.
How do you satisfy your urge for coding as a lead? Do you have any hobby projects / have enough coding at work?
so far I am still coding quite a lot, it might be pair programming/mentoring or reviewing and refactoring. Something that is also satisfying is when new projects start and I take care of the architecture design and often set up a basic project with a proof of concept or blueprint so that the devs can go on implementing the features.
Thanks for writing it! It resonates so much with me as I’m also not an easy person to work with and I’m in the same situation right now. It’s been very challenging and almost led me to a burn out. Your post helped me realize I’m not alone in this boat. So thanks for that!
Great post . Thank you. This is so much helpful for me. I learned so many new things especially:
Focus on Impact and not personal output
"let them do a worse job than you do"
focus on actions , what you can control and not the "fruits of your actions" which are not always in your control
That was a must read!
I'll save this article to read every time I need to remember something about being a Tech Leader! Thank you!
Thanks for posting this post , it's really contains a lot of information and tips
Love your post. It provides a lot insight into what it means to lead after being a collaborator who may lead during implementation.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Nice post
Good post.
Many times facing the situation being transition from Sr.Dev to Lead "Resist the urge to take over the task". It difficult as we are responsible for a quality delivery within committed deadlines and many times considering myself accountable for all the tasks leading to micro management
Unicorned. I can't agree more. This make sense and it is totally opposite to what I've heard from some people recently. Thanks.
Thanks.
Interesting... What did you hear from other people that transitioned to leadership positions?
Maybe I got I wrong all these months.😅
Nice post, thanks!
Great great post, thanks for sharing. This is the position I am striving for, but if Techlead has less time coding, then how one can keep their skill sharpened? Thanks.
that is the trickiest part. sometimes... when your skills get rusty... you transition to less technical leadership positions (people management), otherwise you might become one of those techlead/principals dynosaurs who are in charge for every architectural choice, but not really taken into account by the devs in the trenches, because they are too far away, from the projects and from the teckstack..
honestly I try to dedicate some time to keep my skills sharp,
Thanks for your Great detail sharing, this part is the most concerned for me because I just love coding and currently work as Team Lead (technical) in my company. I really don't want to lose the coding part. Again, Thanks Davide.
"That's when regular devs just smile and nod at your phrases in 1on1s and go on with their work." so true sometimes :D
Thanks for sharing
Great post!
Sometime, I have a few questions into myself. That's what i need.
Thank to sharing!
I liked this blog post, my reading come in the time.