Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?

Few things I would like to say:

It will no longer be about you. It will all be about your team. Make sure you create a great team, nurture them, train them, teach them how to think critically (in doing so yourself).

Ask your team to write out everything they plan to do before they actually do it. Reason with them on what they wrote and what approach decisions they plan to take. Teach them to think long term. Writing before actually doing the task helps get a lot of clarity to them and also helps you in assessing what they were planning to build. (It also makes for a great log of what we did and why we did it. This will be the product documentation for your entire product tomorrow.)

Treat your team like your family. Do not stress them out with too much work. Be respectful of their time and effort. Give them breaks post completion of major tasks. Every second that you let them rest and breathe is a second you have invested in the future. They will recharge and put their best in the next task.

You have a tough job of standing up for the right long-term tech decisions. Stay loyal to your product. Work for your product - not your company. Take tough tech decisions that will stand for the long term stability and robustness of your product. But occasionally make allowance for your business team too.

Sometimes your teammates might shy away from a big daunting challenge - step in and work side by side with them to tackle it. But do this infrequently.

There is a lot to add to the above list but in general the idea is to help your teammates grow, help them think critically, stand for your product - make the tough calls.

All the best!

Assume that, for the people on your team, work is a #4 or #5 priority. And there's nothing wrong with this, as long as they're giving you a solid 80-90% effort during working hours.

If you ask them to put work ahead of family or faith or rest, or if you somehow expect more than 100% effort from them, you're going to drive away the ones who have other options. And the reason they have other options is because they're the best ones.

It will no longer be about you. It will all be about your team. Make sure you create a great team, nurture them, train them, teach them how to think critically (in doing so yourself).

Ask your team to write our everything they plan to do before they actually do it. Reason with them on what they wrote and what approach decisions they plan to take. Teach them to think long term. Writing before actually doing the task helps get a lot of clarity to them and also helps you in accessing what they were planning to build

Treat your team like your family. Do not stress them out with too much work. Give them breaks post completion of major tasks. Every second that you let them rest and breathe is a second you have invested in the future. They will recharge and put their best in the next task.

You have a tough job of standing up for the right long-term tech decisions. Stay loyal to your product. Work for your product - not your company. Take tough tech decisions that will stand for the long term stability and robustness of your product. But occasionally make allowance or your business team too.

Sometimes your teammates might shy away from a big daunting challenge - step in and work side by side with them to tackle it. But do this infrequently.

I would advise you to not take the position. It would be a disaster in my opinion to attempt to be a tech lead without years of experience at the senior level. Your high level engineers will catch whiff of your lack of experience. Your mid and associate levels will not accelerate as fast as they could have, and you will feel over your head. You will essentially be Peter Principaling yourself.

If you are going to do it, read a ton of books. Minimum in my opinion are: 1. The Managers Path -- general advise 2. Coaching Habit -- for performing 1 on 1s 3. Extreme Ownership -- for building an effective culture that delivers results.

Speaking as a team lead, the most important thing is to know what your expected role is - are you a manager? Are you in charge? What does your boss expect of you, and what does he expect of your peers?

You succeed when your team succeeds... if they don't, then you don't.

In my case, I don't have any authority other than influence. That's ok, it also takes a lot of responsibility off my plate.

If you have authority over people, know that you can tell them what to do if you have to, but if you reach the point where that's all you can do, you've failed.