[mattsmith321]

I came out of lurker mode just to reply to this article.

I get the author's premise that capable developers don't necessarily need a lead. However, based on my experience, that is overly optimistic.

I've worked in large organizations for quite a while now and have run in to two specific situations where this mentality just doesn't work: - Need for a tie-breaker. I've been in places where the Sr Devs on different projects/applications (myself as one of them) have all disagreed on the direction to take the roadmap. As a result, we ended up with four separate projects/applications going four separate ways. All because there wasn't one person to get everyone in line. - Need for a tech lead to set the right direction. It's been a while since I have worked with a lot of talented, like-minded people that were all capable of making good technical decisions. For the past ten years, I have seen a huge trend to just finding the lowest cost resources. Granted, it has more to do with my situation, but that just goes to show that the author's position may be valid for him, it definitely does not apply to everyone.

I also believe in the following: - The Mythical Man-Month where the best team structure is similar to an operating room where the surgeon has complete control of everything that happens. He has ultimate accountability and what he says goes. - Also Peopleware where really good people are worth the money. If you don't get really good people, no matter how willing they are, they aren't going to make a solution as clean. And unfortunately, I'm in a world where we have decent developers who are always willing to jump on tasks, but they don't always make the best decisions. A tech lead would fix that.

Anyway, context is everything. What works for some might not work for others.