The Key to Becoming an Effective Tech Lead
Discover some of the most common obstacles and how to overcome them to establish yourself as a successful Team Lead.
It’s an experience that is familiar to most people climbing their career ladder — you find something you enjoy, you become confident in your knowledge, you work hard towards promotions, then BAM! You’ve done the job so well that you are no longer the “do-er” but the “oversee-er”. The tech industry is a prime example of where this transition can be particularly tricky. Often the skills necessary to be a great developer do not always translate easily to the role of leader or line manager. In this article, we will delve into the common traps to avoid and simple tips to be a successful tech leader while still enjoying what you do.
Adapting to your new identity as a manager is often not helped by the fact that very few employees receive formal managerial training. Learning “on the job”, or from mentors, is vital for success in any role but there are soft skills and other management techniques that are often best trained by experts. It’s also important to note that not all personalities are suited to managing people, and that is ok. There are occasions where employees try the tech lead role for a year or two and then decide that they prefer just coding and revert to a senior developer role where they are happier.
When you do get the big promotion, and you’re determined to do well, it is common to fall into the following traps which may prevent you from being a successful leader.
Traps to look out for
- Making all of the technical decisions
It’s normal to feel like you need to throw yourself into your new role and demonstrate your authority straight away, but it’s essential to take a step back. Even though you may be the most experienced developer on the team, your role is now to lead and encourage your team to make decisions, not dictate everything.
If a tech lead insists on making all of the decisions, it can create a bottleneck where the team can’t progress if you’re not available when something urgent comes up. The best decisions come from using your team to your advantage. They likely have different areas of expertise, and sometimes getting them all in a room together to discuss the issue will result in the best approach. It doesn’t mean that you will never get to make decisions; it’s just important to think about how to approach each case individually. You could:
- Delegate the decision — give the final say to someone else on the team that you trust and follow up afterward to see why they made the decision. This approach will allow you to step in if needed.
- Delegate but offer advice — delegate the decision to someone on the team but give your opinion for consideration.
- Get the team together — bring the team together to discuss the issue until they reach an outcome that makes everyone happy.
- Consult the team — allow the team to give their opinion and allow for discussion, but ultimately you will make the final decision.
2. Not paying attention to your team
As a first-time leader, it can be easy to ignore a conflict amongst your team or to not notice when one of your developers is disrespectful to a non-technical colleague. These are things that weren’t your problem before, but now you need to build a different kind of relationship with your team. They need to trust you, feel like they can come to you with problems, and also understand that you are in charge and will challenge them if they are not communicating or performing well. Your role is to point them in the right direction, give regular constructive feedback, and ensure that your team is motivated to be successful and work well together.
3. Writing too much code
This is a big one. There is no doubt that you are going to miss writing code. And a common mistake is feeling that to demonstrate great leadership, you must write code all of the time. It is vital as a tech lead that you continue to read, write and review code, but that will take more of a backseat now that you’re responsible for the team’s performance and people management. It’s crucial to balance your time so that you can spend some time on code but still keep up with your primary responsibilities like planning sessions, setting code standards, identifying risks, mentoring, HR tasks and building a technical vision.
Tips to keep in mind
In addition to dealing with these common obstacles here are some useful tips to help set you up for success in your new role as a manager:
1. Delegate
This is very difficult for a lot of people, especially developers who are used to being given a problem to solve and get a kick out of researching different ways to solve it, finding the solution and of course taking all of the glory!
A tech lead has many responsibilities to focus on, so it’s not possible to take on a lot of coding tasks. Also, by taking on the most challenging problems, you are potentially depriving one of your team the opportunity to grow and work on their problem-solving skills.
2. Set up a structured schedule for 1:1s
As a tech lead, you are no longer measured by your ability to complete coding tasks; effective leaders cultivate high-performance teams. You must get to know your team one on one, build a relationship with them, encourage communication, and let them know that you want to see them do their best.
A 1:1 meeting at least once a quarter (or more frequently if you feel it’s beneficial) is an opportunity for each person on the team to highlight any concerns they have, discuss their career goals and allows you to provide feedback on their performance. When an employee is uncertain of their place, how to fulfill their role, and feels overwhelmed with the challenges thrown at them, there will be problems. You need to keep your employees comfortable, confident but still challenged so they can perform to their best ability.
3. Understand the business
To be successful as a tech lead, you need to start understanding how the company works. It would not have been necessary before because your purpose was to produce code. Now you are responsible for business performance and will have to build relationships with non-technical people such as Project Managers, Creative Directors, Marketing and Sales Managers and the CEO. You need to find a way to explain technical concepts and ideas to non-technical people in a way that they can understand clearly; this may be using diagrams or whiteboards to lay things out logically, or try using less technical vocabulary.
4. Write some code
As mentioned previously it’s important not to fall into the habit of coding all of the time, but you do still have a responsibility to stay up to date with the latest trends and understand what kind of problems your team might face. It’s not possible for you as a tech lead to make vital technical decisions if you don’t understand their real implications, and to do that, you need to keep your coding skills up to scratch.
The easiest way to put time aside to review code or do some research is to block out time in your calendar each week. It is part of your role, so it is just as important as your other tasks, but can quickly get knocked further down the list of priorities when you are busy. It will help you when estimating tasks or projects, keep the trust between you and your developers and avoid issues that could result from you not fully understanding the requirements of a job.
5. Be active in the industry
It suits some people more than others, but there are considerable benefits to getting more involved in the tech industry and building your network. There are countless ways to do this, and a lot of developers are doing them long before becoming a tech lead, but you need to keep up with it:
- Contribute to open-source projects
- Get involved in in-depth forum discussions
- Answer questions on Stack Overflow
- Attend local events or meet-ups
You may even decide that you would like to speak at an event. Don’t wait for someone to come to you, find conferences you’d like to attend and then send them a topic you’d like to speak on. Chances are they’re looking for speakers, and if you’re accepted you’ll most likely get to attend the conference for free, so you get the best of both worlds!
Conclusion
To sum up, there are a lot of things that change quite drastically when you move into a tech lead role, and it is hard to navigate at first. But you got the promotion because someone with more experience than you saw your potential and you owe it to yourself to give it your best shot. Using these tips and avoiding common bad habits, you will be on your way to being an effective tech leader in no time.
