What does a Tech Owner do at WTL?
We recently had a small rearrangement in our company structure which included introducing a new project team-based role: the tech owner.
The naming of the role might be a bit unusual but many companies will probably find a similar role within their team setup (or at least one or more persons taking these responsibilities).
To give more insights on why we saw the need of introducing that role and what a tech owner is responsible for, WTL interviewed with me and Markus, one of our tech owners.
Enjoy reading!
Max, why did you see the need for a new role?
In one of our projects, we had to deal with rather strange regressions from time to time. Despite high test coverage in an admittedly complex setup. These errors often didn’t show up until the end of a sprint, which was frustrating for everyone involved in the project.
That’s why we set out to find the causes!
Can you name the “top 3”?
Gladly. We are working with some historically grown black box APIs in the project in question. Their documentation is rather rudimentary and not always as expected.
In addition, there is a complex data model and a high number of variable parameters in the program flow.
In every project, new knowledge about how APIs work is acquired again and again — but even good documentation is often only at 90%. If you work on another task and return to the respective API after a while, the in-depth knowledge will inevitably be forgotten.
Does this mean you should document in-depth knowledge immediately?
Yes, although that requires some discipline.
What else did you find out?
Especially in long-term projects, it often happens that the team members change. This leads to the fact that the respective individual style of the developers becomes visible in the code base. Of course, this is not a bad thing as long as the particular coding guidelines are adhered to, but it can certainly lead to more time spent on familiarization with new colleagues.
Moreover, the unknown factors at the start and changing directions within projects are often risks that lead to misdirected abstractions and therefore the technical quality of the project.
The Scrum framework already includes the roles “Scrum Master” and “Product Owner”. What distinguishes the Tech Owner from these?
Max: The PO is responsible for the development of the product and the Scrum Master takes care of the organizational procedures. In Scrum, all developers are on duty to take ownership of the team’s product. We don’t want to change that, but even in a group of talented developers, someone needs to take responsibility for the team’s efficiency as well as the stability and longevity of the technical solution.
Ok, understood. And that person is the tech owner?
Max: Exactly! We’ve been looking for an answer on how to get a grip on the issues we were facing and we’ve traced it back to ownership. Besides the technical leadership within the team, the tech owner supports the product owner with technical expertise and ensures the long-term success of the project by making sound decisions.
How this works in our day-to-day work is something Markus knows first-hand:
Markus, how did you come into the tech owner role?
Well, becoming a tech owner at WTL felt like a natural progression after reaching a certain level of seniority in software engineering.
At WTL, every developer strives for a high level of technical excellence, but as Max said, a project needs one person that will ultimately take the overall responsibility or “ownership” for all technical or development-related aspects. Taking that ownership requires a commitment to the full lifecycle of a project. Being involved in something from its greenfield roots to it being a mature project is a good qualifier, as is a considerable investment of the everyday work time in that project. Ownership is hard to take when spreading one’s attention between multiple different things regularly.
What does that ownership mean for you?
For me, it starts with deep knowledge of and responsibility for the project’s technical processes: Which style guidelines do we use? I should then have an eye on them being followed. How does the build process work and — arguably more important — how can we fix it if it breaks?
Being a tech owner also means steering the technical direction during the development process. Sometimes requirements change or highly challenging features need to be implemented. Finding solutions in these circumstances or helping other developers find them while keeping high technical standards requires the aforementioned long-lasting involvement in technological development.
But a tech owner can also bring value earlier in a project’s lifecycle?
Absolutely. At that point, fundamental decisions will have to be made about architectural patterns or choices of specific technologies. Here, the tech owner will be supported by even more experienced colleagues like our CTO, but they can have a substantial influence on the overall setup and structure of a software project and build the knowledge base to guide the project in later stages.
The ownership is not just restricted to purely technical things, though, correct?
Indeed. A project’s tech owner at WTL is also the person closest to other developers. Mentoring developers with less experience (e.g. through pair programming sessions) and looking for opportunities to promote technical learnings are just two examples of what a good tech owner should feel responsible for. Beyond those formalized tasks, keeping an eye on team morale (and influencing it through good leadership) as well as spotting any challenges that might impact the development process are two more examples of things that a tech owner should facilitate. A tech owner can have a unique perspective on the development team compared to other people.
What does that mean in the wider business context of a project?
Software development at WTL is not done for its own sake, and being a tech owner also means representing the development team in certain discussions with clients or other stakeholders. Whenever technical aspects might collide with other business constraints, it is a tech owner’s responsibility to advocate the development team’s capabilities and limitations and translate between technical and business requirements so that everyone has a shared understanding.
If you were asked to reflect on your time in this unique role as a tech owner, how would you respond?
For me, becoming a tech owner was a welcome change: this position poses a unique and refreshing set of challenges that make me look forward to each day at WTL. Exerting influence on the technical direction of a project is both a great boon and a responsibility and enables me to continue to grow as a software engineer. And while it might sound like a daunting task, I can always rely on the help and support from all my colleagues at WTL.
Thank you for reading. If you are interested in more Posts about our company structure at WTL, make sure to follow our publication.
