The Loneliest Career Jump: From Developer to Tech Lead

I still remember my first time being asked to lead.

It wasn’t a formal promotion — just my manager saying, “You understand this system best. Can you guide the new hire through his first ticket?”

I nodded confidently. Then I panicked.

I knew how to build the feature myself. I could have coded it in two hours. But teaching someone else? Breaking down the problem? Reviewing their code without crushing their confidence? I had no roadmap for that.

For months now, I’ve been quietly talking to developers about this exact transition. The story is always the same:

We’re brilliant at promoting coders. We’re terrible at preparing leaders.

The Missing Playbook

When you’re learning to code, the path is clear:

1. FreeCodeCamp or Codecademy
2. YouTube tutorials
3. Stack Overflow
4. Build projects
5. Apply for jobs

When you’re learning to lead? Silence.

Suddenly, you’re expected to:

- Give feedback that motivates instead of demoralizes
- Delegate work you could do faster yourself
- Make architectural decisions with long-term consequences
- Navigate team dynamics and difficult conversations
Oh, and you should keep coding at the same level, because that’s how you got here in the first place.

A Conversation That Changed Everything

Last month, I coffee’d with Sarah, a senior engineer at a mid-sized tech company.

“I got promoted six months ago,” she told me. “I cried three times last week.”

“Because of the technical complexity?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Because I had to tell a junior developer his approach was wrong for the fifth time. Because I don’t know how to say ‘this isn’t working’ without watching his face fall. Because I stay up at night wondering if I’m crushing someone’s love for this work.”

She paused. “I miss when problems were in the code, not in people.”

What If You Could Practice First?

Imagine a basketball player stepping into their first NBA game without ever practicing free throws.

Imagine a surgeon performing their first operation without residency.

Yet in tech, we throw developers into leadership with zero reps. No practice. No safe space to fail. No objective feedback.

What if you could:

- Practice code reviews with AI junior developers who don’t take feedback personally?
- Run sprint planning with virtual teammates before doing it with your actual team?
- Make architectural decisions and immediately see the downstream consequences?
- Give difficult feedback and get evaluated on both clarity and empathy?

What if you could build leadership muscle memory before the stakes were real?

What I’m Building

I’m creating a leadership flight simulator for developers.

It starts simple: a chat interface where you mentor an AI “junior developer” through a coding task. You give guidance. They ask questions (sometimes frustrating ones). You review their code. They implement your feedback.

No human egos. No career consequences. Just pure practice.

The vision is bigger — multiple AI teammates with different personalities and skill sets, project simulations, progression tracking — but it starts with one simple question:

Can we create a safe space to practice becoming the leaders our teams need?

Why Now?

The timing feels urgent for two reasons:

1. AI is changing the value equation
As coding becomes more automated, the human skills — mentorship, judgment, leadership — become more valuable. The developers who thrive won’t just be technically excellent; they’ll be technically excellent leaders.

2. The next generation deserves better
How many junior developers have left tech because their first lead didn’t know how to lead? How much talent have we lost because we promoted great coders into roles they weren’t prepared for?

I Need Your Honest Perspective

I’m at the beginning of this journey. I have more questions than answers.

If you’ve made the jump from developer to lead:
- What was the hardest part?
- What do you wish you could have practiced first?
- What does your team need from you that no one prepared you for?
If you’re approaching that transition:
- What scares you most about becoming a lead?
- What skills do you wish you could develop in a safe space?
If you manage developers:
- Where do your new tech leads struggle most?
- What would make your job easier?

No Pitch, Just Curiosity

This isn’t an investment pitch or a product launch. I’m not asking for anything except your perspective.

I’m genuinely trying to understand: Is this a real problem? Would a practice space help? What would it need to be truly useful?

If this resonates — if you’ve felt that lonely jump from coder to leader — I’d be grateful for your thoughts in the comments.

And if you’d like to follow along as I build this, I’ll be sharing updates here. The first simple prototype is already taking shape.

Because maybe, just maybe, we can build the playbook that should have existed all along.