Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#151

Post by dottedmag » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 7:18 AM UTC

S4M wrote: post #80

7402 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your satisfaction changes from being happy that you've polished some nice bit of code to being happy that you've shipped a product and successfully run a group, and gained the admiration of the people on your team and in your company. Competence is it's own reward. I learned those rules from observing the behavior of group leaders I've worked with/for. There have been a few times (over many years) when I've thought t…

Well, if you keep working on shitty tasks (because you assign them to yourself) and keep being interrupted, only for your product to depend on the hazards of the market, you will get burned at some point if what you ship fails for reasons that don't depend on you or the team and people leave as a result. I honestly hope it will not happen because you seem like a great Lead, but you can't say this scenario is not a po…

Definition of shitty task varies greatly.

A personal anecdote: I have recently discovered I was bored on a job because the tech lead, after working with a dozens of engineers who considered cleanup and simplification tasks boring and wanted to implement new features, stopped parcelling out those and kept them to himself, while distributing new functionality tasks (which I don't personally enjoy doing 40 hours a week) throughout the team.

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#152

Post by qznc » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 7:56 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #150

edw519 wrote: post #91

Technology 1. Know your apps. 2. Understand your domain. 3. Understand your technology under the hood. 4. Have an idea of how you'd approach each project. 5. Write detailed technical specs for juniors. 6. Write general technical specs for seniors. People 1. Be nice. 2. Understand you are a resource provider, not a boss. 3. Get shit done. 4. Ditch team building gimmicks (see #3 for what's important). 5. Listen! 6. Sha…

4. Ditch team building gimmicks (see #3 for what's important). I'd say gimmicks aren't going to save you, but consider morale events and other subtler stuff to help build team cohesion. Things like going to lunch regularly together, for example. When people are more comfortable with each other it makes it a lot easier for them to collaborate, rely on each other, ask each other questions, mentor each other, etc.

The art is to distinguish between gimmicks and effective team building. I believe regular lunch together is great. Having a day-long team building event not so much. Watching a movie together is nearly useless because there is little interaction.

I think the important aspect is for people to interact in different contexts. Lunch is already different to the usual office context. Playing games is great in general (board games, paintball, rpg, team sports, whatever).

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#153

Post by Evgeny » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 8:09 AM UTC

royosherove wrote: post #117

http://5whys.com - I'd recommend a lot of the advice there (I'm the owner of that blog so I'm a bit biased). http://teamleaderbook.com is a book that I wrote for software team leaders

Well, that's too amazing to be true - as part of my preparation I started reading "The Art of Unit Testing" just a couple days ago (not that I did not write tests before, but got a suggestion that the book will help me better understand dependency injection, inversion of control etc.)

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#154

Post by Evgeny » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 8:12 AM UTC

methodover wrote: post #50

OP, I'm sort of curious why they're hiring a tech lead from the outside. Why hasn't someone taken that position from within the organization? Someone who's worked on the project, who understands it, who has the moral and political authority to lead? I worry that your task will be really, really tough. If you can, in the interview, try and understand the situation over there. Why do they need an outside lead?

Thanks, that is a good question to ask in the interview. I will. One of the reasons may be that I have experience in the particular field, and also worked for a competitor in my previous position a few years ago.

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#155

Post by Evgeny » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 8:19 AM UTC

brandall10 wrote: post #75

Many times a tech lead isn't about being the smartest or most knowledgable person in the room - it's about getting your team, your boss, other departments on board with a plan and executing. In some environments it may be that you have to be the sharpest depending on the team you're given, but often times it's best to be the most judicious and compassionate. Think of it more like being a mini-manager - perhaps 30% ma…

Thanks a lot. I'm sure I read the book a few years ago ... will have closer look to make sure I'm not confusing it with "The Pragmatic Programmer".

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#156

Post by z3t4 » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 8:22 AM UTC

You lead the way and when you have half of them with you, the rest will follow.

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#157

Post by qznc » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 8:24 AM UTC

I heard about this model from Michael Church, which I like. The idea is that there are three forces, you need to balance as a manager.

1. Your team. This is obvious. Acknowledge they are humans. You have to worry about them. Try to keep them happy and safe.

2. The Business. This is the cold-hearted inhumane entity which only considers the free market. You need to satisfy that beast, because otherwise everybody loses their jobs. It only wants to squeeze the maximum productivity out of its employees. Often its goal are in direct conflict to your teams goals.

3. The Organization. These are all the other people in the company. Your boss, collegues in other teams, etc. They have their own needs and agendas, usually different to The Business. Do not forget to consider these.

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#158

Post by twicezero » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 9:16 AM UTC

My summary, after many years thinking about it, is: Build technical leadership in depth.

What ever you do, what ever the problem. It's a key-person problem unless your team can do it.

If you have to tell your team what to do. You are failing, and you need to do something about it.

The leader sets the vision, makes as start, demonstrates good and keeps people on track. The coach makes people the great person they want to be. A leader can use simple coach techniques to grow an resilient team who can work to build something great.

I've noted down some of my learnings: http://www.engineeringandcareering.co.uk/p/leading-and-guidi...

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#159

Post by twicezero » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 9:19 AM UTC

I guess I should really answer your question though :) I collected some interesting blog posts that I loved and stuck them here

http://www.engineeringandcareering.co.uk/2013/07/technical-l...

Talking with Tech Leads might interest you also: https://leanpub.com/talking-with-tech-leads

Re: Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?

#160

Post by shubhamjain » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 11:16 AM UTC

7402 wrote: post #53

Here are three rules I've followed: 1) If there's an exciting fun task and a messy unpleasant task, assign the fun task to someone else and do the unpleasant task yourself. 2) If someone on your team wants to ask you a question, always make yourself available and absolutely pretend that you don't mind being interrupted. But if you need to ask someone on your team a question, always ask first if it is a good time for…

Regarding (3) why there is so sharp divide between people who say, "don't sugercoat the truth" and what you just advised. It is confusing what side to be on.