I am 24 years old and fresh out of college. I am a Software Engineer working for a IT company. My Technical Leader calls me and says, “I have to take on another project, so I want you to take my place as a TL. First thing tomorrow.” I say yes. I have no idea what that was all about!
The next days..
challenges started popping up everywhere.. New reports to send, new people to talk to, situations to unblock
and.. no satisfaction at the end of the day.
So I started working more, and more and more.
Doing my best.
I did not stop and think too much..
Here are a few questions to think about before you take on the Tech Lead role, or if you are just starting out. They were created based on my experience, working with Tech Leads and talking with experienced TLs. We have all been there.
1. Are you going to code as much as before?
Why was I working more and more? One of the reasons was that by doing the Tech Lead stuff, talking, unblocking, attending meetings, and supporting other developers made me feel like “I am not doing anything!” at the end of the day.
As a developer, it’s easy to get the satisfaction and feel useful just by fixing a bug or completing a task. That’s easy to measure, right? So I had to code to feel useful and be able to say to myself at the end of the day, “You did a great job today, Andra!”.
So be aware of this trap.
Where will your satisfaction come from?
As a Tech Lead, you have both technical expertise and leadership as responsibilities. Does it have to be a balance between these two?
If you ask me 😃, I have found over the years that there does not have to be a balance. It’s more about what’s needed at a particular moment, in a particular project. Sometimes you code more, sometimes less, sometimes not at all.
I am not saying “Do not code!”. I’m saying “Do it when time allows you!” Otherwise consider that you are doing it just to get some satisfaction, and by doing so you are sabotaging your non-work time.
Like it or not, as a Tech Lead, the way to get satisfaction is by looking at the performance of the team, by making sure you unblock them, by making sure that the delivery is on time and that the quality is high. Measuring that is a challenge. It’s more of a subjective evaluation. From you and your colleagues.
2. Do you need to be the best technical person in the team?
If your automatic answer is “Yes” just pause for a moment and think about it.
It’s actually a trap. Why would I say that? From my experience and the experience of others.
The position of a Technical Leader requires technical expertise, not being the best on the team.
If others know more, you can learn to use that to benefit the team.
If none of you have an answer to a technical problem, find someone who can help.
This is where the Tech Lead’s gold lies.
Another challenge here is how to deal with colleagues who have more experience than you do.
In the following, I share my experience with this. The answer is the same “TL is not about being the best on the team!”.
3. How are you going to manage all the requests that come to you from different directions?
There is always a meeting to attend..
Always a fire to put down..
Without boundaries in place you’ll end up just like me! Saying “YES” to everything that comes your way!
What do I mean by boundaries?
Let’s take the following situation.
You have booked in time to do your TL stuff , alone. How you book that? It’s up to you. It can be blocking daily time, 2 times a week, etc.
The boundary is not to trade that time for meetings or other stuff. Just say “I’m not available at that time”. No explanations. Don’t justify yourself. Don’t use reasons. There is never a good enough reason for you that I think is good enough for me. It’s still a reason.
I’m not saying, “Never break the rule.” That’s up to you. I’m just saying, 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟, 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮.
You can check if you are really needed in a meeting. You can ask “Why am I needed? How can I contribute here?”
Learn not to give answers and commit to doing something on the spot, when someone asks you. You can say something like, “Let me check when I can do this, and I will get back to you by the end of the day.” And make sure you get back to them by the end of the day!
Questions you can ask yourself: “Is this my job?” “Who else can help?”
4. Do you know what your manager expects from you as a TL?
I certainly did not ask myself that question. And actually, I did not think about asking my manager what they expected of me. There was a job description somewhere, so I just made some assumptions and did my best.
Tech Lead is not a clear, standardized role as, for example, a Scrum Master. It is defined differently from company to company.
Here are some steps on how to make it clear:
- Ask what is expected of you – from your manager, from the dev team, from others involved. Just ask, do not judge their expectations.
- Make a clear list.
- Take some time for yourself and check whether or not you can fulfil everything that is expected of you. If you are not sure if something is your responsibility, clarify it with your manager or someone who can clarify it for you.
- Then go back to them and using the list communicate what you can and what you cannot do, and make an agreement.
Clarifying what’s expected, what you can and cannot actually fulfil on makes a big difference. Why? It’s an agreement that you can use as a reference and go back to.
5. Today you are colleagues, tomorrow you’ll be their “boss”. What will change in your communication?
You might run into these problems, all of them or some of them. I have had them all.
- “When there’s a problem in production, I expect them to drop everything and take care of the problem. But that does not happen.”
- “They are not involved in meetings. I speak alone.”
- “They are not responsible for the topic, I need to keep telling them. They are not proactive.”
- “They don’t read the task properly, which leads to incomplete work.”
All of the above can be resolved in communication.
You might reply “How do these problems relate to communication?”
That’s good. You will find the answer on your own.
WIth communication it’s not so clear as an “if .. else if .. else ..”.
There are tools you can use in your communication with your colleagues.
For each of the above problems, there are tools you can use. The tools are the “if. . else” you are looking for.
Here is a tool I created to be used for the “They don’t read the task properly, which leads to incomplete work.” problem!
I would love to hear you thoughts! Email me at andra.popa@leadersbeingheard.com.
Andra
