Being a Techlead sounds like a dream job: You get to decide everything, you will get no pushback and everyone will listen to you. All jokes aside, being a Techlead is a great opportunity to grow, but is not for everyone.
There are these key moments in your carreer, sometimes this comes in the shape of a promotion. A promotion can come through creating opportunities and paving a path but often it is because a position in leadership became vacant and you are next in line. In my carreer I had both of these experiences: My first time as the Techlead of a team was through promotion because the more senior engineer left for greener pastures. I was terrified and was thinking: “What would he do”. Eventually I came to the realization that I was a different person and distilled the things I liked on his approach and made changes where I was comfortable. The second time I became Techlead was by leading through example: I took up ownership, created a vision, created a team, promoted and showed there was a need for a platform team. Both had their up and down sides. In this article I will share some of the things I learned and that are key to preventing burnout as a Techlead.
What should a Techlead do?
One of the key aspects a Techlead should improve is the efficiency of the team. A Techlead minimizes the impact of blockers, makes sure the team can focus on their tasks, ensures the team grows and creates the best possible products. A great Techlead helps the team to get the best out of themselves.
Building culture
One of the first principles I learned as a Techlead is that you not only make decisions, enforce standards or drive change: You need to build a culture. This culture should be open, forgiving, safe and happy. You are sharing a responsibility to deliver the best products you can, doing this in a comfortable and fun place where you can make an impact is key. Realize that you are not alone as a Techlead, in my opinion you are not a lead but more of a facilitator. You are there to make sure the team can do the assignment, part of your assignment is to make sure the team can grow, you are there to make sure the team can have fun building products, defending your team members and make sure they can focus. All of these conditions are vital for teams to deliver the best value to the company they work for. You only build great products if you have a healthy mindset, a healthy culture often brings this for free.
Be aware that being a Techlead is not about being the nicest guy in the room and this role is not about friendship, your task there is to make sure the team can perform and all the members that are part of this team. If someone is not performing, you need to have conversations how this can be improved, set realistic goals and drive for improvement. This does not only make the person stronger when they succeed, but also brings relieve to your team. Nothing is more demotivating for high performing team members than to see someone in the team not reaching their full potential and this is not being addressed.
On the topic of high performers: Please also be aware that someone who delivers the best code or is able to reason strongly is not always the best developer in your team. Previously I have worked with people that had high intelligence and could blow everyone out of the water with their reasoning, but as a coworker they caused toxic environments by calling out people in public or creating an unsafe workspace. This could be a result of being demotivated as I mentioned before, performing better than your peers can result in some form of entitlement. In those cases there is some complications because often the organisation views them as the best member, but do not be afraid to discuss their behaviour in private, question their response and set expectations. A solution for this is as I learned that this can be resolved often through leading by example, promoting a supportive inclusive culture is infectious and spreads to the rest of the team.
One of the standards I set for myself is: You should treat others how you want to be treated yourself. For a healthy interaction with your team members, you should be able to have a conversation with them about their performance, their growth, their happiness and their future. You need to voice this often and repeat it as much as you can. This is not always easy and sometimes you will have to have difficult conversations. But in the end, this will make the team stronger and the team members happier. Bring this message how you would like to hear it: With compassion, leave room for improvement and be open to other point of views. Being a horrible person to work with will result in the best team members leaving and the worst performers will be staying.
First things first
Being a Techlead comes with mandate by the management team, while the role is different in any company, it should be clear that you are involved in the hiring for your team, you should be part of decisions that affect your team and be part in the discussions about the roadmap of your team. Again, culture is important so you will not be the dictator who will rule and decide who stays or leaves the island, but writing together with your team the expectations which you have from your team is one of the basics you need as a Techlead. A substantiated fact based opinion on what makes someone a great fit in your team is important, having a say on what tooling your teams can use or what epic your team will be working on are vital to be in control. Ensure you have the title and mandate from management to make these decisions. If you do not have this mandate, you are setup to fail and burnout due to frustration. Do not be afraid to give the assignment back to management, having this mandate is vital for your health.
If you are proactive you might fall in the trap of picking up tasks without the mandate, this can result in misallignment with management and you feeling underappreciated. Ensure you have the title, mandate and support from management to make decisions. One of the pitfalls I have seen in these scenario’s is that it is unclear for management what problem you are solving for them, being questioned
You are not alone
There is no I in Team. Your role in the team is to facilitate it, this does not mean you should do everything. As Techlead you are probably not the best or most senior developer in the team, and this is just fine. Be aware that as a Techlead you often code less and talk more, you will be gathering requirements, be first in line when things go wrong or be primary contact for stakeholders. But you do not work in a silo, team members can join meetings and with their expertise they can gather requirements and drive meaningful conversations. It usually comes with the territory, but realise: Everyone in your team is more than willing to help out. More senior developers are more than happy to help you out, since it gives them context and an challenge.
Your team is not only out there to assist you, make decisions in your team through consenssus. Give your team the full scope of the issues faced, decide together on best course of action and explain your reasoning why you believe a decision is best course of action. Share your vision and expectations and be open to feedback and change. The result is better engagement and shared ownership.