Books/Talking with Tech Leads

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Author: Patrick Kua

People transition from the role of a senior software developer to tech lead without much preparation. A long number of years of programming do not prepare people for the role of a tech lead.

This book is a collection of interviews with tech leads from diverse situations and at varying levels of experience. I will not delve into any particular interview in this summary, but only pick out things that I found useful from the book. At the time of this writing, I have about 7 years experience working with software teams.

A tech lead is supposed to have a broader perspective of the project. They will have to pull their head out of the trenches and look at the bigger picture. A tech lead should worry about things like how a particular feature would fit into the product and the ways in which it interacts with other features. They should think about not only the technical benefit of introducing a new programming language into the system but also the trade-offs involved in deployment and the team's ability to adopt it.

Feature Lead

A feature lead is one person from the team who takes care of all the aspects of a feature from requirements to architecture and implementation. This role is a good preparation to taking on the role of a tech lead in the near future.

Working with People

Software developers gain a lot of experience in making computers do their bidding. As long as we are meticulous with our instructions to our computers, they are expected to do what they are told. It doesn't work like that with people. People can respond in various ways to the instruction. They might pretend to understand. They might not like what they are told and implement it in a poor way. Some might even take a passive-aggressive stance. It is important to read the other person's body language and make sure that they are really on board with the idea.