[tomca32]

In the teams without a tech lead that I have seen, people just defer to the most senior/confident developer in the team to resolve deadlocks and decide between some tougher choices. That person essentially becomes a tech lead without a title.

Edit: I agree with the child comments. It makes things easier, less prone to miscommunication, and efficient to have an actual tech lead in the team.

[skeptic2718]

I have worked in teams without a formal tech lead and yes, the most senior/confident developer would work like that (even without extra pay).

However, these teams also tended to be most consensus-driven. Decisions would take forever because there would be a tie and people would just put it aside, or they would avoid hurting other people's feelings directly (it often turned somewhat personal), etc. It was very inefficient.

[mnsc]

Senior does not automatically imply confident. I'm most senior in my team but in certain areas I have to admit I'm not confident enough to make a sane choice. If a junior developer that is confident in a solution can't be able to lead in that decision, the team is dysfunctional as stated in the article.

[matwood]

It's not about a junior person leading in the decision, it is about deciding between competing solutions. As the senior person you should see the bigger picture beyond the current problem solution even if it's an area your unfamiliar with. The people proposing the solution need to convince you that their solution is the one to go with.

A good lead will listen to all sides, and explain how a decision is being made. The goal is that whatever decision occurs that everyone is okay with it, even if they disagree. This is where people skills (and engineering skills like cost, consistency, time) are just as important as technical skills.

[mnsc]

Sounds like a "Tech Lead" that is a skilled mediator that gets the whole team onboard the right decision and at the same time a skilled coach that can explain the relevant part of the bigger picture to the juniors and how it relates to the decision at hand.

My takeaway from the article is that these two roles in a well functioning team can be two people and also different people depending on the problem.

[douche]

Confidence also doesn't necessarily imply competence. Who hasn't been confident in some solution, which turned out to be a terrible idea due to factors that we did not account for that were beyond our knowledge and experience?