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Valentin Baca
Valentin Baca

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Looking for Tech Lead resources (books, sites, etc.)

First, to be clear, this is not about becoming a Manager.

My career path is trending toward becoming a Technical Leader. In essence, this is similar to what others call a "Senior Engineer." To be clear, this is NOT moving into a management or technical project management role.

Rather, it's more of a leadership software engineer role. I would still be an individual contributor, but would dial-back my Lines of Code per Day in order to both lead technical projects and influence other teams in my organization.

What I'm looking for is resources that focus on being an effective leader in the tech field -- especially books, I love to read. This can also include developing interpersonal skills ("soft-skills"), but also requires strong high-level tech skills, like designing service architectures.

Most "leadership" material out there is only for management, as that's what people consider "leadership" in most organizations. So I'm looking what's been useful to others in a similar role.

Here are some examples that I've read that come to mind, by topic:

Top comments (10)

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pnelson5 profile image
Patrick Nelson

SE Radio did an interview a couple years ago with a Patrick Kua, a Tech Lead from ThoughtWorks. I thought it was a good discussion. He also wrote a book on the subject.

se-radio.net/2016/08/se-radio-epis...
leanpub.com/talking-with-tech-leads

Hope this helps!

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ccleary00 profile image
Corey Cleary

Seconding this, Patrick Kua has some great insights and reading his book was really helpful for me when I first became a Tech Lead.

He also has some good smaller posts on the topic (also on the ThoughtWorks blog):
5 Tips for Being an Effective Tech Lead
Three Common Mistakes of the First Time Tech Lead

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val_baca profile image
Valentin Baca

This looks spot on. Thanks!

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themindfuldev profile image
Tiago Romero

I always suggest this book "The Servant" about servant leadership: smile.amazon.com/Servant-Simple-St...

This is about being a leader instead of being a boss, and it's not specifically about being a tech lead but more about soft-skills which are useful anywhere else in your life. For me it was a life changer.

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jwrubel profile image
James Wrubel

What a great recommendation! It was one of the reasons I decided to create softstuff.tools . So many people end up moving into management and don't get a chance to learn about servant leadership.

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mikeveerman profile image
Mike Veerman

Hi Valentin,

As someone who has made a career out of technical leadership, I can't help but warn you: a big part of that job will be management. ;-)

That means most of those management books will be useful to you as well. If you haven't read the classic "The Mythical Man-month" yet: that's a great place to start.

I didn't know "On Writing Well" and it's on my to-read list now. Thanks!

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brpaz profile image
Bruno Paz

I am reading this book and its awesome: amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-N...

It might not be exactly what you are looking for, but I think its worth reading anyway. Chapter 3 is dedicated to being a Tech Lead.

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arj profile image
arj

I found an earlier blog entry here to be extremely helpful: dev.to/lpasqualis/11-top-responsib...

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reergymerej profile image
ᴙɘɘᴙgYmɘᴙɘj

amazon.com/Debugging-Teams-Product... is really good. It focuses on the culture teams come from rather than symptoms.

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hammersi profile image
Sagi h

Check out the tech lead YouTube page.
youtube.com/channel/UC4xKdmAXFh4AC...