Tech Lead Handbook
How to create space for you and your team to grow
The What
The biggest mindset change from an Individual Contributor role to a Leader role — How to grow your team.
The How
You should put growth into 2 dimensions, vertical growth is awesome, however, horizontal growth is critical for team happiness and retention.
Domains
- Front end & BFF: web framework, user experience, browser support, JS/TS, etc
- Backend: database, microservice, architecture, cache, search, etc
- Data: data engineering, data wrangling, data science, data analysing, A/B testing, etc
- DevOps: security, CI/CD, network, etc
- Practice: dev experience, best practice, code quality, code review, delivery process, etc
- …there are more…
Horizontal growth
- Learn from others within/outside your domain
- Better collaboration among domains make a smooth delivery pipeline
- Knowledge sharing help build up a good team culture and avoid the single point of failure
- Informal mentorship is very helpful
Vertical growth
- Be clear about Engineering Levels: Associate, Mid-level, Senior, Staff, Senior Staff, etc
- Delegated chat about career development
- Always help your team grow
Mindsets
- Solve a problem rather than implement a solution
- Driver’s mindset rather than passenger’s mindset
- Being proactive and speaking up
- Practicalism, not perfectionism
🔴 Red Flags
- Separate the team into support & Innovation // It always falls over
- A player leaves if there is no space to grow
🗒 Tips
- Be inclusive. We are one team.
- Semi durable squads & swap // trade short-term productivity to long-term growth
🕳 Pitfalls
- You as a Tech Lead is always on the critical path
- You as a Tech Lead is always on the critical path
