6 Insights from Raghda, Software Engineer and Tech Lead
You’ve been with Taxdoo for almost one year; tell us about yourself and what you did beforehand? I am from Cairo and I studied computer science.
Previously, I worked in Berlin as a full time backend developer for two years. I then moved to Hamburg 2019 and joined Taxdoo. I also love working out and playing sports — it’s a great way for me to remain balanced.
1. You were previously a backend developer. What was the transition like to fullstack?
Not that easy, as I am not a huge CSS fan. If the product design and CSS setup is all confirmed, I am good. Becoming a Fullstack developer at Taxdoo meant that I brushed up on React and core CSS concepts. With this knowledge, I can check the documentation in more detail and then implement a feature.
2. What is like moving from being a single contributor to a Technical Lead?
It was very challenging at the beginning; thinking outside of the box, providing input and feedback for individuals and being responsible for a whole team was quite a learning curve.
However after the first 3 months, I found my flow. I really enjoyed providing input for people, making sure the process is running smoothly, removing blockers and giving feedback.
3. What tips would you give to engineers who would like to become a Technical Lead?
Communication and patience are key. Patience with yourself is especially important so that you do not give up when facing struggles and trust in the process of reaching goals in a sprint.
If you are considering this path, you can consider taking a course or reading about leadership skills. The main thing is to understand whether becoming a leader is something you would like to do or if your passion lies with hands-on programming.
4. How do you balance the duties of being a Technical Lead with programming?
I don’t do as much coding as much as before; perhaps 30% of my time is spent on coding. The focus is on serving my team. I try to group meetings so that I can use the remaining time to support my team, discuss tickets with product managers, check dependencies, arrange scrum events and then make time for coding.
5. What qualities make a great leader in software engineering?
Trust. Building trust with team members and becoming a trustworthy leader takes time. The goal here is to get to a point where people feel that they can approach you and feel comfortable talking to you about anything.
Remote work has emphasized that forging these relationships requires us to think outside of the box, however we’ve found that setting up weekly Donuts (an online meeting) to talk about anything or play Gartic phone has really helped. Also, I make myself available for my team and am also happy to jump on a random call to talk about anything.
6. What changes would you like to see in software engineering over the next few years?
Automation; this should happen as much as possible so that manual, time-intense, daily tasks are removed as much as possible. Another thing that is worrying me are Vulnerabilities in software packages we depend on. Perhaps JavaScript packages will move into a direction where emphasis is being put on them having fewer vulnerabilities (currently, there are a lot, especially npm packages).
Would you like to work with Raghda and the rest of the team at Taxdoo Engineering?
We’re hiring! Check out our open positions here.
