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I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?

world.hey.com

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Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?

#11

Post by tormeh »

fredsted wrote: post #5

> After that incident, I created an incident review document and suggested a small review of the tasks that should be prioritized to prevent it from happening again. I got carried away and created an initial presentation for the other backend Chapter Leads with a backend strategy. I do not remember it perfectly, but it included hexagonal architecture, a testing pyramid with contract tests to avoid breaking APIs used…

> hexagonal architecture

God help me. Was on a project where this was used to justify so much extra boilerplate. Every class had an interface, and then we used dependency injection to supply the class to something expecting that interface. Actually, it was in Rust, so there were no classes, but that didn't stop us. Absolute waste of time.

Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?

#14

Post by pico303 »

I feel terrible for the author, having to work in this kind of structure. Someone should tell mytaxi that even Spotify never got “tribes and squads” to work, it sounds like for the same reasons/problems mytaxi ran into.

Edit: accidentally hit update instead of scrolling…

One thing missing from the article that I don’t think has been mentioned is confidence and setting expectations. I’ve found if I expect certain results and convey confidence, people are more likely to follow your lead, or at least listen to you. Don’t act like a know it all, and be sure to encourage and question others so the environment is collaborative (solve problems as a group; don’t be a hero). But set expectations.

Also, I don’t think you mean “intimacy.” Do you mean “empathy?”

Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?

#15

Post by socketcluster »

I've been tech lead at different companies. Every time I switched companies, I started out as senior dev and got promoted into the team lead role again; each time with full support of my team.

I don't look or act like a leader and this has been a hurdle for me. But what typically happens anyway is; within a few months, my code ends up being a core part of the project; my modules become heavily depended upon and somehow I end up maintaining all the config files and guiding architecture decisions. One of my team members joked that I "conquered everyone's code." I probably write fewer lines of code than everyone else but somehow those lines end up heavily used. So then I basically just ask the big boss for a team lead position.

Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?

#16

Post by DoctorOW »

> Note: this article is a translation from the original “Soy Tech Lead y no me hacen caso. ¿Qué hago?”, in Spanish.

I wonder if "tech lead" coincidentally are two words that are the same in Spanish as English, or if this is considered a technical phrase.

Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?

#18

Post by master-lincoln »

socketcluster wrote: post #15

I've been tech lead at different companies. Every time I switched companies, I started out as senior dev and got promoted into the team lead role again; each time with full support of my team. I don't look or act like a leader and this has been a hurdle for me. But what typically happens anyway is; within a few months, my code ends up being a core part of the project; my modules become heavily depended upon and someh…

I don't understand why that is a logical progression. Writing good code and leading a team needs vastly different skill-sets in my eyes.

Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?

#19

Post by master-lincoln »

varispeed wrote: post #10

At previous corporation, the tech lead simply recommended for sackings a developer who was questioning his approach. Once he got sacked, everyone listened... ...and then most of best skilled people left in the following weeks. Tech lead then hired his mates and company nose dived.

must be an idiot that tech leads boss
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