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We don't need a Tech Lead

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Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#61

Post by ep103 »

mnsc wrote: post #50
ep103 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the only thing I was thinking this entire article. I'm a dev lead. If I had an entire team of my great engineers, my job would be easy. I'd simply delegate my duties to everyone else, and we'd all be nearly equal. The reality is I have 2 junior people who need to be guidanced through everything. I have one moderately experienced guy who just wants to be left alone to solve bugs on his own, in quiet isolation.…

Hey, quit!

Nah, I like these people, and helping them grow.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#62

Post by mighty_warrior »

brandall10 wrote: post #57
zaphar wrote: post #2

I don't know that I fully agree with this. I think in even well functioning teams you need at least one person who is empowered to make the call. In the cases of a disagreement deadlock you need someone to break the deadlock. Whether that person is a called a Tech Lead or something else you still need them and they need authority and freedom to make the call. Maybe his Mediator can be that person but if you give the…

I don't agree with it either. Case in point - I've been in a situation as detailed toward the end of the article where all the devs on the team were feature leads, except we still had a designated overall lead. Just 4 devs on the team, all of us were very sr (principal or sr. principal devs). But the overall number of stakeholders in the product were probably well over 30 people, so it was still a big coordination ef…

I agree with you. As a "tech lead" myself, I find my biggest jobs are fostering communication between team members and clearing roadblocks. Those roadblocks could be making a design decision, clearing up requirements, getting support from external teams, etc. When every team member is responsible for clearing their own obstacles you find a lot less work gets done and often times the same problem gets solved multiple times by multiple team members.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#63

Post by crdoconnor »

vidarh wrote: post #22
bryanlarsen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well functioning team makes all decisions by consensus, so there are no deadlocks. There are certainly disagreements, but they are hashed out in a timely fashion in well functioning teams. That doesn't mean necessarily that everybody completely agrees with everything, but it does mean that members recognize when to defer rather than stall. If you have deadlocks, it's not a well functioning team.

Great. But we live in reality where lots of teams are not well functioning some or all of the time, and we still need to get things done even when we don't have the time, resources or influence to fix the team composition then and there. EDIT: I'd also argue that in most well functioning team few decisions needs to be taken by the team, because the team members know their role well enough and trusts the others to do…

>Great. But we live in reality where lots of teams are not well functioning some or all of the time

Managers abusing their power causes way more dysfunction than a lack of authority ever does.

>Unfortunately again, we live in the real world where decision making is often needed exactly because a lot of the time there are team members we can't let run rampant and make their own decisions.

That isn't what managing by consensus means. In the real world bad eggs don't "run rampant", they are reined in by peer pressure, and poor developers very often recognize that they are poor developers (except when they are designated as leaders, in which case they usually do 'run rampant').

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#64

Post by pc86 »

ep103 wrote: post #61
mnsc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, quit!

Nah, I like these people, and helping them grow.

More than technical expertise this is what will make you a good lead.

You can learn the tech side. You can't learn to like your team, be a good person, or enjoy helping people.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#65

Post by boubiyeah »

Just like design by committee works well right?

Sorry, but that's just not practical. Even github has managers now; you need someone to steer things in one direction and have the authority to decide if all discussions failed, so that the project can actually move forward.

Put many senior devs together and it's entirely possible that the project would be "very interesting" code wise but nothing would actually be of use to the customers in 1 year. Yo dawg, I saw you refactored my code so I refactored it again.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#66

Post by paulddraper »

There's a phrase for that: "design by committee"

While I think democracy is the best way to preserve personal liberty, I do not believe it is the way visionary or ambitious plans are conceived and executed.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#67

Post by snarf21 »

jordan_clark wrote: post #15

My opinion is if you don't need a tech lead, great. But, most teams do. Someone needs to be there making a final decision. Also, it depends on the company and the type of team. If it is a government organization and the majority of the development team are contractors, a tech lead is most definitely needed to advocate in the best interests of the government entity. In this scenario, the tech lead would need to be a g…

I also think it is hard enough to get the Tech Lead and Product Owner on the exact same page even with good requirements documents. If you give all team members the requirements and have them present them to each other in terms of vision and goal of the product, there is would be differences of understanding. I see the Tech Lead role as keeping everyone on the same vision and (in a lot of companies) organizing the team to be most effective.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#68

Post by crdoconnor »

jerf wrote: post #24
voidpointer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One doesn't become a leader by just being called the lead. Some people have personal traits that make them assume a leader role more often then others. In my experience, a team that is constantly looking for one person to call all the shots isn't very much empowered. If everyone can take responsibility to own up for the calls to make, you end up with a far more engaged team. It requires a certain maturity but a motiv…

"In the cases of a disagreement deadlock you need someone to break the deadlock." != "a team that is constantly looking for one person to call all the shots".

"In the cases of a disagreement deadlock you need someone to break the deadlock."

97% of the time consensus driven decision making means no deadlock and the other 3% of the time you can put decisions to a vote.

I've seen more value destroyed by a team lead inappropriately setting the wrong agenda than I have by team members not knowing when to shut up.

If anything I've found that there's often too much consensus (people who just go with the flow rather than voicing an opinion).

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#69

Post by sapir131 »

"Tech lead" is an anti-pattern. It creates another "dotted line" and it usually results in an Officially Glorified Engineer being given the power to assign himself all the good work and delegate the crap to the team. Since he is evaluated as an "individual contributor" rather than as a manager, there is no reason to expect him to do anything else.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#70

Post by matt_kantor »

brandall10 wrote: post #57
zaphar wrote: post #2

I don't know that I fully agree with this. I think in even well functioning teams you need at least one person who is empowered to make the call. In the cases of a disagreement deadlock you need someone to break the deadlock. Whether that person is a called a Tech Lead or something else you still need them and they need authority and freedom to make the call. Maybe his Mediator can be that person but if you give the…

I don't agree with it either. Case in point - I've been in a situation as detailed toward the end of the article where all the devs on the team were feature leads, except we still had a designated overall lead. Just 4 devs on the team, all of us were very sr (principal or sr. principal devs). But the overall number of stakeholders in the product were probably well over 30 people, so it was still a big coordination ef…

That sounds like a project manager to me. I'm curious if you have anyone with that job title (and if so what they do) or if your "team lead" is acting as a de facto project manager to fill a void.

If you don't have a dedicated project manager (which I suspect is the case), I'm also curious if you think your team lead is overworked. Maybe your team doesn't need full-time project management so it's more efficient to have this person split their energy between that and engineering, or maybe not and you'd be better off having someone who can specialize in that role.

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