Can you be a tech lead without leading people? (No. 75)
Today, I continue to troll the tech lead internet since I'm taking a December break from new content
Hey Tech Leads!
By the time you read this, you’ll correctly notice that we’re more than half way done with the week! You. Can. Do. It. Tech. Leads.
FINISH STRONG! 💪
As I mentioned earlier this week, I’m staying away from new content so I can focus on this weekend’s second live tech lead training as well as refreshing that embarrassing book sitting there on Leanpub at the moment (no link will be given today).
So we’re going to focus this week (and maybe the balance of December) on other people’s content (OCP).
First, let’s turn to the honorable world of Twitter-
Today I’m going to relay what’s going on in the tech lead Twitterverse. Some of my favorite posts and shares.
Actually, I lied. Let’s start with LinkedIn Seth Tringale at Goldman Sachs said a few days ago on LinkedIn:
I often get asked what it’s like to transition from single contributor to tech lead or manager. The answer for me was always simple: you evaluate yourself not based on what you directly achieve, but what your team, your reports, and your peers each achieve. You need a large degree of humility and an understanding of scale (even for those so-called 10x developers out there): you can’t possibly scale and achieve as much operating alone as you can with a team. Making sure that your team has what it needs in terms of support, training, and opportunities for growth becomes equal, if not more important than your direct needs.
Ok, now let’s get into Twitter:
Well put Jaana!
Sajith has a video of some kind of varmint walking right over some kid’s cardboard maze, and it’s a true story of tech leads and developers.
Ben Christie did his own “is there a doctor onboard” riff:
Chris Sinjo has an honest post that I retweeted on @techleadcoach where he’s talking about how he’s getting used to the tech lead role. He says,
Says he’s finally getting comfortable in the role after about a year. Remember the chasm tech leads! And reach out to us for help Chris!
Finally, there was an interesting Dev Discuss on Twitter about confidence as a developer. Think that was pretty awesome. How do you build confidence as a developer? In yourself and others? How do you lose it? Will link to the thread in the show notes.
I can’t believe I’ve been on Twitter for 11 years. That’s a big chunk of my life. Longer than my oldest kid.
Let’s dig out of the Twitter swamp
Let’s get into some slightly more considered stuff from the internet. First, Dvir Segal, a tech lead, writes on Medium about the The differences between being a tech lead and a senior engineer. Good question Dvir—how do you draw that line?
Mr. Segal says a senior engineer can say “I know language x, I’ve worked with it for some years, so I’m experienced with it.” In contrast, a tech lead:
“should instantly” suggest other ideas on a team. I strongly disagree on this one. I get the sentiment, but I don’t think tech leads need to necessarily jump in with their views and might actually be more effective if they hold back
be constantly attending conferences, have some side projects, etc. Can see some value on this, but don’t think it’s necessary. Helpful, but not necessary. Think this is just representative of the level of a tech lead’s engagement.
be up to date with software engineering trends. No disagreement from me on this one. This doesn’t mean you should know everything, just be current; it’s a key way of adding value as a lead.
actively developing an open source repo for learning a language. By this I think he means being out in the community, learning new stuff, which I can’t disagree with. How you do it is up to you though.
“following the steps” to become a world class expert. This could be valuable if you’re on the bleeding edge of the open source community for something big, but certainly seems a bit over the top for most tech lead roles I’ve seen. Would be great, but not necessary.
He reaches an important point that I strongly agree with. He says the tech lead should have a wide ranging influence AND impact with customers, other teams, and the leaders. Impact. Influence. THIS IS LEADERSHIP.
Then he has this awesome sentence that I have to quote directly. The tech lead’s
everyday work is to help others improve their skill set by guidance and mainly listening (a vital skill of being a leader).
Listening tech leads! “Vital skill” for being a leader! Love it! Love it . . . .
Alright, let’s move on.
Here’s another post from a company called SafetyCulture, written by Kevin McHugh recently: Thoughts on Technical Leadership. It’s a thought piece, so I want to be careful not to do it any injustice, but I do have some serious issues with it.
McHugh talks about how his company, like some of the software companies I’ve worked with, has two tracks: the “leadership” track and the “individual contributor” track.
I want to quote his issue with semantic distinctions at length:
The language here is problematic for a number of different reasons, not least because it gives the impression that in order to demonstrate leadership, one has to become a manager of people. With this post, I’m looking to dispel that belief… It’s my belief that Australia’s tech companies have not done nearly enough to promote the existence and importance of technical leadership roles in our teams.
Let’s start to change that… today! In our industry, we need to get to a place where engineers really believe that it’s possible to advance to equally senior levels as those in People Management positions, without managing people.
McHugh then seeks to divide people and technical leadership in the following ways. First, people leadership, to him, implies:
taking care of people and their needs
thinking about the individual’s current and future contribution to the company
enforcing or upholding high standards applying compensation and promotions in the right way
The technology leader, by contrast, does the following:
care about the quality of the codebase
focuses on the future and future-proofing or evolving the product
enforces high standards through principles and frameworks
Interestingly, he says his company is starting to follow this principle by diving people managers and technical leads. He says:
We’ve started to change that as we don’t believe that a person running a team of any decent size is capable of focusing on both people and technology and doing both well.
I strongly disagree. STRONGLY.
In most non-technology environments, leaders and managers tend to manage and lead both people and things (like tech). I’m not a big fan of Steve Jobs’s management style, but he tapped into a long running corporate narrative when he said the best managers are individual contributors who hit a limit on their individual contributions and need other humans to help them execute on their visions.
I’ve worked a lot of those non-software jobs in my life, and in every case, the manager led both the things and the people. I’ve worked in car washes, washed dishes, been a waiter a few times, shipping and distribution, even worked in call centers, and in all cases, the managers and leaders managed and led both the people and the “technology” of those businesses—the length of time and structure of parking lots in car washes, the dishwashing machines, the call center headsets. Software is not so unique.
I don’t think you can cleanly, or effectively, separate people and technology leadership. And centuries of human organization and business have proven that, if you find the right people, the two skills coexist nicely. And that’s what I want to help you do tech leads! Combining tech and people leadership is extremely high impact.
But I think I understand the author’s objective. I think he’s trying to make an argument for why individual contributors should be just as valued as “people leaders” yet getting to focus on “being technical.”
I just think he’s missing the most important point.
It’s true that having a technical impact matters, but as tech leaders, we have that impact through other people—not through our own contributions. He’s drawing the wrong distinction.
Is it rare to possess both skills? Yes. Is it something you should aspire to? Absolutely. It’s the pinnacle of growth in our business.
We can still be very technical and be powerful tech leads. But to have the impact that matters we need to BOTH lead humans and lead a technical vision for them.
Thanks for reading!
The Tech Lead Coaching email list and podcast are written and recorded by Michael Rice to bring more clarity, certainty, and confidence to my tech leads.
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