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Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
191–200 of 259 posts
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you find yourself teaching your team take a step back. The best managers build super star teams and gives the teams ownership and autonomy. You are in a good position if the team is teaching you, not the other way around. Try to build a team made up of people technically superior to you. And give them ownership, this is key. It is not just about finding engineers who take ownership. It’s about giving engineers own…
This does not apply in all circumstances. My jump into tech lead came as the old tech lead (15+ years xp) and young superstar(~4 years with wisdom beyond his years) departed from it. The replacements were a developer just coming off a PIP and a new graduate with zero industry experience, having not interned. I still kept the focus on developing the team as much as possible but the candle needed to be burned on both e…
> I was pretty close to burnout by the end of that year if I’m honest with myself though and my own career progression has without doubt stalled due to it
Sounds like you had a tough time but empowered the team to succeed. Maybe with some personal cost to yourself.
How would you approach the situation knowing what you know now? What would you do differently?
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#193empathy builds trust and trust builds respect, define the box, public praise private criticism, let them fail, give everyone ownership of something, promote continuous ideas, teach synthesis from the finest grain possible, isolate that which varies, abstract, your decisions are reversible make one and move forward, fall in love with the problem, be cross functional, listen first then act, stay one chapter ahead, be consistently consistent, make them smile!
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#194Listen to the manager tools podcast.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
This does not apply in all circumstances. My jump into tech lead came as the old tech lead (15+ years xp) and young superstar(~4 years with wisdom beyond his years) departed from it. The replacements were a developer just coming off a PIP and a new graduate with zero industry experience, having not interned. I still kept the focus on developing the team as much as possible but the candle needed to be burned on both e…
> I was pretty close to burnout by the end of that year if I’m honest with myself though and my own career progression has without doubt stalled due to it Sounds like you had a tough time but empowered the team to succeed. Maybe with some personal cost to yourself. How would you approach the situation knowing what you know now? What would you do differently?
Perfect reply!
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you find yourself teaching your team take a step back. The best managers build super star teams and gives the teams ownership and autonomy. You are in a good position if the team is teaching you, not the other way around. Try to build a team made up of people technically superior to you. And give them ownership, this is key. It is not just about finding engineers who take ownership. It’s about giving engineers own…
I think every organisation has people of different aptitudes, intrinsic motivation and interests. Building a team of superstars is meaningless. It's the management version of "make it better" or "it doesn't work" type feedbacks that don't give any necessary insights to actually do it. Building a team of people technically superior to you? In what way. Does your devops guy need to be an expert in language design? On t…
>I think every organisation has people of different aptitudes, intrinsic motivation and interests. Building a team of superstars is meaningless. It's the management version of "make it better" or "it doesn't work" type feedbacks that don't give any necessary insights to actually do it. Building a team of people technically superior to you? In what way. Does your devops guy need to be an expert in language design?
I'm just talking about the ideal you should strive for. Given the opportunity this is what you should try to do. Of course like many ideals, you rarely have the ability or resources to fully implement the ideal.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#197First of all you need to figure out if you're a "tech lead" (informal title, no reports or authority) or a "dev lead" (formal title, with reports and authority). As a former Google tech lead (and I know this sounds like a YouTube parody): my advice is don't be a "tech lead" for long. Either be a dev or move into management. Make up your mind. Google "tech lead" is defined above. As a tech lead in such informal positi…
Exactly what happened to me, then I read the Gervais principle and reduced all my stress by leaving for a new role 'just' being a dev instead of tech lead
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#198Similar thing happened to me a long time ago. One major lesson to take away is this: everybody on your team is smart and capable unless proven otherwise. You are not supposed to be the smartest or most skilled developer there and you are not supposed to be the one to taken on hard technical problems.
Your #1 priority is to be a _facilitator_ in order to keep things on track. Clear the hurdles and engage with developers on the problems they are solving. And be humble. Don't treat others like they are less than you just because you are a lead.
And congrats! Enjoy it and be fully engaged. Also don't step on your superiors' toes or make them look stupid in front of their superiors. If you disagree with them, make sure to do it in private.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#199I worked couple of years in this role so here are my few cents:
1. Listen - Learn to Listen to Your customer and Team Members. Understand the reasoning behind what they are asking for.
2. Show, not only tell - I used to sit next to devs and see that problem they are mentioning is actually is problem. Sometimes issue could be business requirement. If technical issue, explain throughly teach how to go about solving such kind of problem. If they are still not able to do it fine, work with them while continue to explain. You want to teach - how to go about "solving problem".
3. Learn, Learn More and Learn More and Keep Learning and then Share - Learn about the business domain. Learn about technical domain. Learn about everything which lets you 'get things done'.
4. Delegate - But delegate properly, once task is assigned, make sure the team member understand what needs to be done. And they understand 'how it will be done'. You don't want to figure out at end of day that because of misunderstanding or lack of information task was not done correctly or worse has to be redone from the start. Reworking sucks big time and will suck big amount of time for everyone - you, team member and customer.
5. Get Details - Try to get as much as detail as possible, based on information take decision based on 'who is right for this job'.
6. Don't play favorites.
7. You dealing with Humans. People make mistakes. Find way to reduce chances of happening mistake in first place.
8. Be cool. Never get Angry. Anger drives out reason.
Good Luck.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead?
#200Top mistakes by new leads: - Not delegating. New leads often feel that if they're not writing code (or doing whatever it means to be an individual contributor), they're slacking off. The definition of "work" has changed. It now means "helping your team succeed". If you try to be an individual contributor, you are doing your old job instead of your new one, and you'll get overwhelmed and sink. - Not asking questions.…
"tech lead" is not considered an individual contributor role? Is it considered a management role? I'm realizing I'm not quite sure what is meant by a "tech lead" role.
First thing I'd say is that tech lead is role, not necessarily a job title.
Second, tech lead is probably the highest position you get to without choosing management vs technical career paths.
You can grow in technical depth and authority without managing more teams, and still stay in connection with the code; or you can try and enable teams to succeed, and steer things towards the business objectives, and spend a lot less time coding. But most companies (at least those that try and retain tech talent) will force you to choose, or choose for you.