Being a Tech Lead and what it’s all about

Technical Vision

The feedback most people gave me when I started as a Tech Lead was that we were lacking a technical vision for the product and they wanted me to come up with it. I didn’t feel it was right for me to think about this alone so I asked the team what they thought we should focus on in the near future. Curiously, we were all more or less already on the same page. So I gathered everyone’s input and came up with the most important technical tasks we should focus on.

We have many improvements to do on our Web app, our Database and on our API. Whether it’s new features or refactoring code, there’s a lot of stuff to work on. My goal is to guide the team through this vision that we all believe in and make it happen.

The Tech Lead attempts to bring team members closer together, so they see things in the same light.

Coding

In the early days coding was where I spent more time. Although nowadays I spend less time coding, I do believe a Tech Lead should keep writing code with the team. Having knowledge of the codebase is very important to understand the impact of adding new features and the cost of refactoring existing ones.

One thing that I spend more time doing with more attention is code reviews. It’s my responsibility to ensure the quality of our codebase. I expect clear, understandable and tested code from everyone on the team.

I would expect Tech Leads to spend at least 30% of their time coding.

People

As a programmer no one teaches you how to deal with people. It’s all about code. Now, as a Tech Lead, I deal with people more often. I dedicate a lot of time mentoring new team members. My intention is that everyone knows as much as possible about the product.

It’s also a challenge to help everyone feel motivated and growing as professionals. As a team, we have common goals to achieve. But at the same time, people have their own personal goals. It’s my responsibility to guarantee that we are all heading in the same direction and that everyone is enjoying the ride.

When you become a Tech Lead, harmonising the team requires you to spend time understanding individuals and focus on improving interactions between the individuals.

The Business

A software product isn’t just about the code. There’s much more to it. And, as a Tech Lead, I started dealing a lot more with other areas of the product. For example, customer support is very important to understand what difficulties our customers are having and where we can improve the product. With the sales team we get valuable feedback about missing features that prevent new customers from buying.

It’s important to understand how all the pieces work together so you can make the best technical decisions that will make the customers happy and allow the business to grow.

Tech Leads become more aware of the time-sensitive aspect of making decisions, because the timing may directly affect the ability of the business to make money and these have to align.

The Tech Lead role

This role is still new for me and I’m sure I have a lot to learn. I’m thankful that I have people around me that have helped me grow. I’m sure different people approach the Tech Lead role in different ways. But, for me, it’s all about:

• Having a technical vision and guiding the team towards it;
• Developing features and improving existing code;
• Ensuring code quality and good engineering values;
• Mentoring the team and helping people grow;
• Understanding how technical decisions can impact the business.