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by whstl 1019 days ago
Tech Lead is a very difficult role. :/

If you are immature or competitive, you cease being a force multiplier to be a morale destroyer.

If you are more of a domain expert than your Product Managers, you will spend your time fighting and refining tasks to build features the right way.

If you don't have enough time to code, you'll go obsolete.
2 comments
onion2k 1019 days ago
I'm the frontend lead in a company of about 200 people (mostly devs) these days, and the idea of being a force multiplier is spot on. I'm not there to be the best dev or the most knowledgable; I'm there to lead the conversation and amplify people who are saying good things. Having a pretty deep understanding of the tech is useful so I can tell what those good things are. I am absolutely not in the company to show off or take credit for what my teams do.

Where I disagree is with the idea of fighting with product owners. If there's a disagreement around approach or tech choices that's a sign we don't have enough information. Fighting or refining won't solve that. It's a signal that we need to do more discovery work and understand the problem better.

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whstl 1019 days ago
I never said one should be fighting. My point is that POs/PMs should know the domain at least as much about the domain as TLs do.

The problem is not needing discovery work or understanding the problem. The problem is when the Tech Lead is the one who's providing all the data for that discovery, or helping them understand the problem better, because of lack of expertise of PO/PM. Or having to push back because of incomplete knowledge.

If there is lack of information or incorrect information, POs should be able to get that information themselves. If a TL is the sole source of that info, then it becomes an issue.

IME this is very common. And it takes too much time of a Tech Lead's day.

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3np 1019 days ago
Domain expert, not tech expert
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jen20 1018 days ago
> If you are more of a domain expert than your Product Managers, you will spend your time fighting and refining tasks to build features the right way.

If you are more of a domain expert than the product managers, argue for the product managers to be fired - they serve no purpose.

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