The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#21

Post by busterarm » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

tboyd47 wrote: post #17

> The Tech Lead is a “hybrid” role with one foot in management and the other in engineering I may have a limited experience but I've never seen an effective Tech Lead who was a hybrid like this and I have serious doubts it's even possible. The amount of time these tech leads spend coding necessarily expands and consumes the time they have available for management. The type of "management" they do then becomes more de…

This is exactly my experience and an environment I avoid working in if at all possible.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#22

Post by codegladiator » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

yc-kraln wrote: post #4

You know what happens at 100x? You burn out 100x faster. But you aren't paid 100x more.

Wouldn't people who are becoming ctos would already have enough experience to know that ?

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#23

Post by bargl » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

leonardsouza wrote: post #18

bargl wrote: post #10

This was a fantastic read that isn't done any service by the CRAPPY title of the article. I can say that they aren't trying to get 10x the work on 1x the budget, but how to effectively manage a team so that your employees feel motivated to work hard for you when they are at work, but aren't stressed by external factors. The basic premise is how do you as a manager give your team 10x time to actually work, focus on wo…

Hey @bargl- I'm the author of that article and I couldn't agree with your summary more. "The basic premise is how do you as a manager give your team 10x time to actually work, focus on work, and enjoy life." Thanks for sharing that! (Also, apologies for the click-baity, terrible title, lol. I tried to make light of it in the article.)

I loved the article. I fell into a project management / tech lead role and while I love it I have failed at a LOT of things while working through it. I didn't have a mentor to what an effective Tech Lead which I feel like this article serves as. IMO the intro to the article makes up for the title and the content of it is amazing.

For example, I've pushed back on management about deadlines because developers hate them and it causes stress / stagnation. BUT the business needs them and I love how you talk to that in a way that I can effectively manage both up and down. Thank you very much for this. If I'd read it 4 months earlier I'd have missed some major (self inflicted) pain points.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#24

Post by alex- » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

mykull wrote: post #2

I really don't think coining the term 10x did anything to help developers or the state of development, and likewise here.

I also agree that it is not a helpful term.

I like to think we are all 10x developers. The question of a 1x developer should be how to grow their productivity (assuming they are motivated to do so). Less productive developers should not feel like they have one tenth of the natural talent someone else has. Instead they should look at how they can improve their work flow/knowledge and companies should try and maximise the output of their employees.

Yes some people will always be better/more productive than others, but most people are differentiated by completely controllable factors.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#25

Post by vvanders » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

tboyd47 wrote: post #17

> The Tech Lead is a “hybrid” role with one foot in management and the other in engineering I may have a limited experience but I've never seen an effective Tech Lead who was a hybrid like this and I have serious doubts it's even possible. The amount of time these tech leads spend coding necessarily expands and consumes the time they have available for management. The type of "management" they do then becomes more de…

> but always end up doing the business critical or challenging pieces themselves (because why would I take the time to explain this when I could just do it...)

If you're not doing design reviews + socializing large technical decisions/reasons then you really shouldn't be a Tech Lead in the first place.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#26

Post by Bahamut » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

tboyd47 wrote: post #17

> The Tech Lead is a “hybrid” role with one foot in management and the other in engineering I may have a limited experience but I've never seen an effective Tech Lead who was a hybrid like this and I have serious doubts it's even possible. The amount of time these tech leads spend coding necessarily expands and consumes the time they have available for management. The type of "management" they do then becomes more de…

I have been in this role at my previous job - I had the responsibilities of an engineering manager and a team/tech lead.

I focused on my team's productivity/management responsibilities first, and coding/my own technical productivity second. Even doing that, I was able to do so much coding that after I left, I heard that someone said that the company would have to hire 3 senior devs to replace just my coding. I was generally very hands off and tried to foster autonomy in my team as well, deferring to my team's judgment/expertise.

The people do exist, but I think it's a terrible idea to expect most engineers to be able to jump into a dual technical lead and manager role, as I don't think most engineers have the skills to pull off both.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#27

Post by tzhenghao » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

morley wrote: post #20

I'm a little surprised that in the article, the tech lead is in charge of breaking up a task into parts. That seems like something a capable SEII should be able to handle, and it only improves them to be able to develop that skill. (Though maybe that means I was a lot less effective as a tech lead than I thought.)

I don't think you're wrong here. Relatively experienced SWEs should be able to do this by themselves. Tech leads should be delegating some of this responsibility to the individual contributors and only offering minor pushback to keep general clean architecture and higher level tech infrastructure goals in check.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#28

Post by vvanders » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

Bahamut wrote: post #26

tboyd47 wrote: post #17

> The Tech Lead is a “hybrid” role with one foot in management and the other in engineering I may have a limited experience but I've never seen an effective Tech Lead who was a hybrid like this and I have serious doubts it's even possible. The amount of time these tech leads spend coding necessarily expands and consumes the time they have available for management. The type of "management" they do then becomes more de…

I have been in this role at my previous job - I had the responsibilities of an engineering manager and a team/tech lead. I focused on my team's productivity/management responsibilities first, and coding/my own technical productivity second. Even doing that, I was able to do so much coding that after I left, I heard that someone said that the company would have to hire 3 senior devs to replace just my coding. I was ge…

Yup, great call out. As a Tech Lead your team productivity takes precedence, even if that means you don't spend any time coding during a sprint. That's why it's a different track than a IC or subject matter expert.

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#29

Post by kolpa » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

leonardsouza wrote: post #18

bargl wrote: post #10

This was a fantastic read that isn't done any service by the CRAPPY title of the article. I can say that they aren't trying to get 10x the work on 1x the budget, but how to effectively manage a team so that your employees feel motivated to work hard for you when they are at work, but aren't stressed by external factors. The basic premise is how do you as a manager give your team 10x time to actually work, focus on wo…

Hey @bargl- I'm the author of that article and I couldn't agree with your summary more. "The basic premise is how do you as a manager give your team 10x time to actually work, focus on work, and enjoy life." Thanks for sharing that! (Also, apologies for the click-baity, terrible title, lol. I tried to make light of it in the article.)

If you are proud of your article, why give it a trash title?

Re: The Effective Tech Lead Is a 100x Engineer

#30

Post by barrkel » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

tboyd47 wrote: post #17

> The Tech Lead is a “hybrid” role with one foot in management and the other in engineering I may have a limited experience but I've never seen an effective Tech Lead who was a hybrid like this and I have serious doubts it's even possible. The amount of time these tech leads spend coding necessarily expands and consumes the time they have available for management. The type of "management" they do then becomes more de…

I agree. The two skill sets - management and technical ability - rarely overlap strongly, and even when they do, the person is usually comparatively better at one or the other where they're better off focusing - and I mean comparatively with reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage .

When someone is strong at making technical decisions, they'll also want to own the delivery of the most technically challenging bits - the bits they'd be best at. That either crowds out growth in the team (if they do it), or they swallow their ego and deliver something they're not fully happy with (if they delegate it), which isn't a whole lot of fun either.