[golergka]

27 years old lead, reporting in. Just curious if you would tell me I'm no lead material.

Now, on one hand, I dropped out and been in the industry (gamedev) for the last ten years. On the other hand, I've actually been on designer and producer positions for the first 6. But then again, on the third hand, I was programming non-stop since 8 and turned in MIX emulator (from Knuth's books) as a school project at 15.

So, may be we can at least agree that any broad statements about professional level of huge groups of people united only by their age, race, country of origin or other unrelated stuff are unlikely to be true for everyone in that group, because people are unique and deserve to be judged individually?

[kozukumi]

Of course we can agree on that. However I hope you will also agree with me in that the term "lead" for many things gets thrown around quite easily in the tech world.

What annoys me is I often see companies promote an inexperienced (due to age) developer to lead or architect or some other title when they are really not that at all. The company does it to keep the person happy [read: shut them up] with a title rather than pull out the company wallet and pay more. I know dozens, maybe even in the hundred+, people who were duped into that. Often because "it will look amazing on your CV!" or "we promise we will review your pay if things work out in 6 months" in the hope you forget about it or don't want to bring it up.

The problem I have with this is that it devalues the actual lead, architects, whatever the current trendy title is.

I look at it this way - A lead developer could be lead on a very important bit of software that somehow fits into something that could cause loss of life. If it were a structural engineer they wouldn't just be promoted to a lead architect after a couple of years in the game. Same with a surgeon or registrar or a judge or detective or ... the list is very long! Except in IT for some reason.

I do not mean to belittle anyone who is a lead developer and under 30. Good for you if you really are skilled and experienced enough to truly deserve that title, my problem is over the years I would say a good 90% of those "lead" somethings under 30 are not deserving of the title.

[golergka]

> However I hope you will also agree with me in that the term "lead" for many things gets thrown around quite easily in the tech world.

Hm, actually I haven't seen it. For me, "lead" has a very exact meaning: a developer who is personally responsible for code that developers people write, and has authority appropriate to that responsibility.

What else can it mean?

[kozukumi]

In my experience a lead developer is the primary contact and owner for a specific feature or program. This person should know everything about what they are lead of inside out, they make decisions on design and implementation. They are able to support members of the team that are below them. They can delegate work to those in their team. Review the work done and offer constructive feedback. Communicate their ideas and vision to those below and above them. Present their ideas and concerns to management and stakeholders with ease.

So there are a few buzzwords in that but that is pretty much my personal experience of what a lead developer should be.

I think part of the problem is that there is no industry standard definition of what a lead developer is. It has been my experience it is abused in the ways I mentioned in my previous post.

Again this is all just my personal experience. We are all shaped by our history and though we try and not judge people automatically it will happen from time to time.