DEV Community

Discussion on: Can you manage a dev team and still be hands on?

Collapse
 
kenbellows profile image
Ken Bellows

It depends on what you mean by "manage", and it depends on what size of "team" we're talking about. I'm on a project right now (and have been for ~2yrs) where our lead developer largely manages our tasks and ticketing system, attends meetings most days, and still puts out a significant amount of code.

Our team is not enormous, it's currently 7 developers (including him), 2 testers, and a system engineer. But he performs the majority of what I would consider "management" functions for the team, and still puts out a few hundred lines of code per week. And he's only working 40hr weeks, not working til midnight or anything.

That said, he's not a CTO, he's just the lead of a single project team. Being a CTO is typically (in my experience, feel free to disagree) much more complicated than simply directing a group of devs to work on stuff. There's usually some longer-term vision planning, working with system engineers to plan out the long-term architecture of the product, sometimes working with vendors, etc etc. That stuff will keep you busier.

Collapse
 
georgecoldham profile image
George • Edited

My CTO works 2 days a week on a project with a team, 1 day a week with a different team a week to stay in contact with everyone and 2 days a week on management stuff. This is in a company ~60devs.

Seems a good balance to me.

Collapse
 
kenbellows profile image
Ken Bellows

That does sound like a good balance. Makes a lot of sense to keep in touch with the developers as much as possible

Collapse
 
kendalmintcode profile image
Rob Kendal {{☕}}

That does seem like a good balance. Maybe you could grill him and get his secrets? He must have a great handle on his priorities and not get pulled into too many different directions.

Thanks for the input :D

Thread Thread
 
georgecoldham profile image
George

She* and I have no idea how. Always available and always busy, I just don’t get it

Thread Thread
 
kendalmintcode profile image
Rob Kendal {{☕}}

She’s clearly a tech witch. Only explanation.

Collapse
 
gturitto profile image
Giuseppe Turitto

That is a good balance. And to me seems her support team, other managers and even the developers, are incredibly good that allows her to be able to breathe. Also how many meetings with clients she has to attend? How much support she gets from the CEO, COO, and others that allow her to avoid being in the grilling seat, because of any of those meetings.