[carterklein13]

I feel like "tech lead" also varies so much from company to company. Where I work, people are technically bestowed the title of "tech lead," and this just means they have to take ownership of far more work for essentially no more pay.

Most "tech leads" where I work are senior engineers, but not all senior engineers are "tech leads." Here, it seems more like a purgatory positions where you don't want or have the skillset required for engineering management, but are far more senior than other senior engineers.

[closeparen]

I usually see it as “most senior person with responsibility for this domain” which, if it’s a smaller / less intense domain, may not be that senior at all.

[bryanrasmussen]

Well you can set standards, if you're the picky type you can then say how you want things done.

I am often less picky than other people, but I find that the picky types often want things that I feel are less than optimal.

So getting offered tech lead coming into a place can be seen as a good defensive choice if you are coming from a place where you feel like you've been suffering because you didn't have the control.