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

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

#171

Post by kevsim » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 7:28 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #100

spenczar5 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you avoid burnout when you're being so self-sacrificial? Seems like it'd be a big risk.

Be very judicious about how often you put your own delivery on the critical path of the project (or sprint, or other unit of work.) It shouldn't be very often.

I've found this to be the single greatest challenge I have as a tech lead. It's incredibly tempting to say "oh, I think I'll have time this week, so I can take that Trello card". If it's on the critical path, leave it for someone else. You won't have time.

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

#172

Post by kevsim » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 7:32 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…

I disagree on #1. There's no need to be a martyr as a tech lead. Assign the tasks based on who is the best person to get it done (based on competency, knowledge of affected components, etc.). Treat your employees like adults. They don't need to be coddled, they know there are unpleasant tasks sometimes. Just try to be fair and ensure that your employees are not getting too such tasks to the point where they feel bogged down. Ask them "are you bored?" whenever you have a 1-on-1 meeting.

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

#173

Post by iSnow » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 7:53 AM UTC

kevsim wrote: post #172

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…

I disagree on #1. There's no need to be a martyr as a tech lead. Assign the tasks based on who is the best person to get it done (based on competency, knowledge of affected components, etc.). Treat your employees like adults. They don't need to be coddled, they know there are unpleasant tasks sometimes. Just try to be fair and ensure that your employees are not getting too such tasks to the point where they feel bogg…

>Ask them "are you bored?" whenever you have a 1-on-1 meeting.

Why would they answer honestly and not what they believe is your expectation? I know I have been in lots of situation where I chose the nice over the honest answer and I don't think I am special here.

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

#174

Post by bryanrasmussen » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 1:28 PM 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…

I remember once someone was doing the absolute wrong approach for something and I did basically number 3 and they said "I'd rather do it this way", of course since I knew it was wrong I should probably just have said "that is wrong do it like this".

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

#175

Post by mrchhunchha » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:43 AM UTC

msloc016 wrote: post #108

matwood wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1-5 are great and what I do. The hardest one for me is 2. I have so many things to get done, but always remember keeping your team on track is your number 1 priority.

I have to remind myself that no matter how productive I am, I can't be more productive as a whole team of smart engineers. One of my main jobs as a tech lead is an enabler. If I can remove blockers and try to cultivate experts then things get done. I do about 30% helping and answering questions. 30% meetings and planning. 30% code reviews. 10% coding.

I would like to join a team which has team lead who follows above points...

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

#176

Post by Amio » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 3:41 AM UTC

Most of all, make your contribution visible to your leader, or to KPI, or to anything evaluating your contribution. If no one knows your great works, It worth nothing to your career.

First, know how they evaluate your works.

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

#177

Post by owensmartin » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 6:20 PM UTC

samelawrence wrote: post #26

randcraw wrote: post #20

What's a good source on becoming a software dev lead? Here are a few suggestions among the many available: Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month" is a classic in this space, though I think its emphasis is less on leadership than the difficulties in software project management. And the book is rather dated now. DeMarco and Lister's "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams" is also a classic, and emphasizes interpersonal t…

Amazon links for the lazy: "The Mythical Man Month" - http://amzn.com/0201835959 "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Team" - http://amzn.com/0321934113 "The Pragmatic Programmer" - http://amzn.com/020161622X "Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams" - http://amzn.com/032182203X "Joy Inc: How We Built a Workplace People Love" - http://amzn.com/1591845874 "A Lapsed…

Thanks for the shortened URLs. Question: I always obtain those by hitting "Share" and then copying the link. Is there a better way?

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

#178

Post by royosherove » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

Evgeny wrote: post #153

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.)

heh! It's a small world!