I’ve struggled to come up with an accurate description of what I do, but this does a pretty good job of it - though with the nuance that my team has always been very small, and at times I’ve been the only contributor.
Out of curiosity, would you make a distinction between “tech lead” vs “lead developer”?
Haha I've often had a hard time describing what I do as well, because it's a lot more than just writing code, which is what people usually think.
For the distinction between "tech lead" vs. "lead developer", it honestly probably changes from company to company. I guess you could say they're the same thing. Or maybe in some companies a "tech lead" would have more of an emphasis on project management whereas a "lead developer" would have more of an emphasis on the architecture. But even then, I don't think I've ever seen a company that has both "tech leads" and "lead developers", they just pick one term or the other.
I’ve struggled to come up with an accurate description of what I do, but this does a pretty good job of it - though with the nuance that my team has always been very small, and at times I’ve been the only contributor.
Out of curiosity, would you make a distinction between “tech lead” vs “lead developer”?
Haha I've often had a hard time describing what I do as well, because it's a lot more than just writing code, which is what people usually think.
For the distinction between "tech lead" vs. "lead developer", it honestly probably changes from company to company. I guess you could say they're the same thing. Or maybe in some companies a "tech lead" would have more of an emphasis on project management whereas a "lead developer" would have more of an emphasis on the architecture. But even then, I don't think I've ever seen a company that has both "tech leads" and "lead developers", they just pick one term or the other.
"Lead developers" must be top-notch/expert in certain domains. I'd rather call them "Subject Matter Experts(SME)" than "lead".