Tech Lead Challenges

I don't want to be a manager (I don't care about dealing with salaries and such). I'm a tech lead.I care mostly about the personal growth of my team, I firmly believe that if I help them be the best they can be, the world will be a better place (even if it means losing some of them because they realize they want to do something else, the world will still be a better place).This means sometimes giving advice, sometimes teaching, and sometimes getting out of the way and let th

Hi,congratulations to you and your team! One thing a developer becoming a teamlead needs to learn is letting go.Changeing the mindest from a maker to a mentor.Hope it helps!Kind regards, Steviee

As a CTO at a startup I use a flavour of this.http://www.engineeringladders.com/There is a difference between leading, managing and mentoring or coaching juniors.Maybe using a flavour of the above in your conversation with your boss will help?

I have a different algorithm, which I have successfully used twice: assume the duties of someone one level lower than your designation for at least a month. If you're a tech lead, drop into the shoes of an engineer; if you're a director/VP, drop into the shoes of an architect (provided you're in the technical track). Get down to the weeds. You will not only build a better mental picture of goings-on from first hand experience, the team will more readily accept you as one of t

As a manager you have the responsibility of achieving some goal through other people. Have you tried this before, or always worked on individual tasks? If you haven't tried it, I bet there is some managerial responsibility you can pick up TODAY in your team which your engineering manager / team lead doesn't have time for, and which would help you both learn about management and your aptitude for it. Such proactivity might also get you promoted if you decide to stick with developme

I naturally take the lead and often end up in a similar situation where I spent a lot of time on leading, instead of tech.Early this year I joined a new team and expected the same to happen, but there were also a few other people who wanted the lead. I've taken that opportunity to let them. I'm now mainly coaching them and bothering with the team dynamics, without getting too distracted by stakeholder management. I now regularly have days where I'm pretty much fulltime coding!

May i suggest working on becoming a teacher / mentor / enabler for your teammates and pitching this plan to managment?

Inspire!I transitioned into a tech lead a year ago and at first it was kind of annoyed by all the requests from the team regarding technical assistance.I realized there were two paths I could take. 1. Continue to be annoyed and try to get as much coding in as I can. 2. Sit down with each individual, help them, give examples of how things should work etc.Luckily I chose the latter option and I have a great relationship with all the team, I have strong coders that are more self-sufficien

I was in this exact position a few years ago! I led a group for a year and a half, with somewhat mixed success. We did some pretty great successes, but also some pretty embarrassing problems that were at least partially attributable to my inexperience. I learned a ton though! The below is my experience, and may or may not translate to yours, but believe me, it was learned the hard way.Being a tech lead is only partly about the tech, and mostly about the lead. You'll ultimately succeed or

You can give your team members more responsibility. Tech leads, buddies, owners of initiatibmves etc. are things. The juniors shouldn't be sucking too much at just your teet.