Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead? • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by wsinks » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

jaspal747 wrote: post #11

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…

Thank you!! I'm moving into a tech lead role as well only managing 2 people, but I need these cheat sheets.

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

#92

Post by nevertoolate » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

jaspal747 wrote: post #45

tensor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say you need to stand up for your users not your product. A gorgeous code base that doesn't do what your users want doesn't help anyone.

As a tech lead, you bother about building the features that the business has identified - and building it in the best way possible, thinking long term about the product. While as a business decision maker, you focus on what your users want - else you will be out of business fairly quickly.

Tech lead is responsible for maintainable code, somewhat anticipating changes in business, so tech lead is a Jedi :)

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

#93

Post by gwbas1c » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #4

Read "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"

Why is this being downvoted?

I haven't read the book, but it has 5 stars on Amazon.

So what's wrong with the book that multiple people downvoted the suggestion?

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

#94

Post by qxmat » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:38 PM UTC

pesfandiar wrote: post #76

qxmat wrote: post #40

1. get 2 mentors: a technical one and business one (doesn't need to be domain specific) 2. your job is transitioning from "doing" to "enabling". You'll be responsible for issues of governance AND operation. Learn the ropes equally. As you introduce successful operational concerns (bottom up) start to generalise them so they can be used as a top-down concern (i.e. i do devops -> we all do devops here, it's part of the…

Number 5 reads a bit like this: if an employee is not motivated enough, instead of trying to find the cause and mitigating, go on the hostile path and get HR involved. In fairness, this could be a good advice for roles that are easy to hire for (e.g. minimum wage manual labour).

I'm of the opinion that dishonesty is serious because it's an irreconcilable breach of trust. There are many things I'm happy to deal with internally providing there's a frank account but once someone intentionally misleads another it makes individual management untenable.

Separately it's a HR problem because of the nature of certain types of work. I'm struggling to fit my view with neural diversity though - some devs say dishonest things without malicious intent because they lack skills to effectively communicate.

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

#95

Post by coderheed » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

Run!

I’m only half joking. Hopefully your company is ‘one of the good ones’ and it will work out, but they are few and far between.

The tech lead job varies a ton from one company to the next, but all too often it comes with high expectations without enough autonomy or authority to deliver on them. Make sure your boss provides clear expectations and work with them to clarify boundaries over time. I’ve been on both sides of this process and it is difficult and necessary.

Too often, tech leads are expected to wear more hats than they are able to wear well. Delegate all that you can and if there is still too much work to do, ask for help.

It’s all about communication so actively work on this skill.

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

#96

Post by Jach » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

Accujack wrote: post #19

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 ov…

Knowing what's expected of you by whom is important regardless of your role. And also team success over personal success -- you have to be in some petty backstabbing nonsense for those things to not be tightly related.

I have a Lead title at work, but like you I don't have any authority over anyone. So I don't really have any advice for the OP, as it seems what "lead" means varies so much from company to company, and to me as soon as you get in the business of authority you really need to start thinking about management, not tech, to which I can only suggest read Deming.

I think my ideal model for 'tech lead' is something like how (I've heard, could not actually be the case) Bryan Cantrill at Joyent operated. Even when he was VP Eng, and later CTO, he still was involved in code, and generally engineers there both "led and were led" without very hard cut roles on that axis.

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

#97

Post by exabrial » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

Listen. Set an example. Promote others.

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

#98

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

crimsonalucard wrote: post #56

jaspal747 wrote: post #11

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…

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…

[deleted]

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

#99

Post by jrochkind1 » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

tbabb wrote: post #75

Top 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.

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

#100

Post by kristov » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #74

kristov wrote: post #47

For one scenario: if two members of your team disagree passionately on something technical and come to you for resolution do the following: tell them they must resolve the argument between themselves with you as a mediator (to make sure they stay civilised and focussed on the technical arguments). Tell them they must come to a consenses themselves. Do NOT pick a side unless the process breaks down. I made this mistak…

Never treat issues of incompetence, inexperience, or bad attitudes as interpersonal disputes. When one team member isn't following well-known processes, or is obviously wrong, you must pick a side quickly. (Examples include things like magic numbers instead of #defines, use of strings instead of well-defined enums, pull requests with lots of commented out code. They can also go to deeper topics, like bad database sch…

I agree with that totally. In the case of technical incompetence for sure it's demoralizing for others to pretend it's a dispute with no "right" answer.

In the case I was involved it was two very competent senior developers and the dispute was between a iterate-fast-and-learn approach, and a build-for-the-future approach. It wasn't clear which one was right at the time and I respected both their opinions. It became clear that it was growing from a technical disagreement into something much more personal. I let it go too far and felt like I needed to step in and pick a side. I believe that I missed an opportunity for them to come to a compromise and learn something about that experience, instead ending up with one very pissed off dev, and one that thought I was on their "side" from then on.

Sometimes you feel like you have to make a decision just because your in a position of power, when actually in many cases you can be there as a mediator, lowering the emotion and keeping things professional and let people work it out themselves.