1.
The Road To Technical
Team Lead
Ben Andersen-Waine

2.
IMO - …

3.
What is a Technical
Team Lead?

4.
A leader, responsible for a development team,
who spends at least 30% of their time writing
code with the team.
Talking With Tech Leads - Patrick Kua

5.
Also Known As:
Tech Lead
Team Lead
Dev Lead
Chief Ninja Wizard (gah…)

6.
Hypothesis

7.
The Audience

8.
What do I enjoy?
• Coding
• Solution Design
• Testing
• Mentoring
• Speaking At Conferences
• Documentation (no, really)

9.
What do I not enjoy?
• Admin
• Meetings
• Excel

10.
Line Management

11.
• Admin:
• 1/1
• Yearly Appraisals
• Holidays / Sickness
• Hiring
• Reporting Up
Responsibilities Of A Line Manager

12.
Traditional Org Chart

13.
Traditional Org Chart

14.
“Sounds Like You Just
Want To Be A Dev”

15.
What Do I Want?
• To take a leading role in technical decision making
• Become a technical specialist
• To contribute to the development of co-workers
• Not to get bogged down in management

16.
The Rest Of This Talk:
• Activities of a Tech Lead
• The Skills You Need
• How To Get There

17.
Head Of Software Development

18.
A Day In The Life
Activity %
Day
(7.5hrs)
Week
(37.5hrs)
Coding 40% 3 15
Design 30% 2.25 11.25
Integration 15% 1.125 5.6
Misc 15% 1.125 5.6

19.
Activities

20.
Coding

21.
Interruptions
Jason Fried: Why Work Doesn’t Happen At Work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD2kNopsUs

22.
Coding - Interruptions
Pair Programming
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/pair.html

23.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Pair_programming_1.jpg

24.
Coding - Interruptions
Pair Programming
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/pair.html
Visual Do Not Disturb
The Personal To Do List

25.
Coding - Interruptions
Pair Programming
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/pair.html
Visual Do Not Disturb
The Personal To Do List

26.
http://66.media.tumblr.com/784ff88c5b5c0deeb50069808ec1f75e/
tumblr_na5w8oljnX1qc0howo5_1280.png

27.
Coding - Learning
Mentoring
https://blog.engineyard.com/2013/php-mentoring-software-apprenticeship
Code Reviews
Collective ‘Mobbing’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_pvslS4gEI
Establish The Culture

28.
http://mobprogramming.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/MobPhoto_2012_11_14.jpg

29.
Coding - Learning
Mentoring
https://blog.engineyard.com/2013/php-mentoring-software-apprenticeship
Code Reviews
Collective ‘Mobbing’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_pvslS4gEI
Establish The Culture

30.
Design

31.
Design
Leading White boarding Sessions

32.
Design

33.
Design
Leading White boarding Sessions
Creating Expressive Documentation

34.
A Picture Speaks A
Thousand Words

35.
Design
Leading White boarding Sessions
Creating Expressive Documentation
Establish The Culture

36.
Integration

37.
Integration
Broad understanding of product architecture
High level view of all work streams
Deep Knowledge of well know problem areas

38.
Misc

39.
Skills

40.
People
1 - 1
Active Listening
Giving Feedback
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/feedback-models-techniques
1 - m
Speaking Publicly

41.
Written Communication
Harrie Verveer - Software Architecture In An Agile Age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK4l8_fzFmk
Narrative Documentation
UML / Sequence Diagrams
Swagger / API Blueprint
Network Diagrams

42.
How Do I Get There?

43.
Get The Skills / Demonstrate Competence
“Act Up”
Find A Mentor

44.
What Kind of Organisation Am I In?
Traditional vs Flat Structure

45.
Flat Structure
Value autonomy over hierarchy
Venerate contribution to the product over job title

46.
Flat Structure - Spotify
https://ucvox.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/113617905-scaling-agile-spotify-11.pdf

47.
“Freedom And Responsibility”
http://igormroz.com/documents/netflix_culture.pdf

48.
“Why does your desk have wheels? Think of those
wheels as a symbolic reminder that you should
always be considering where you could move
yourself to be more valuable.”
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf

49.
Traditional Hierarchy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_management

50.
Traditional Hierarchy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_management

51.
Having The Conversation
Know What You Want
Express It Well

52.
Final Thoughts

53.
Developers

54.
Decision Makers

55.
Questions

56.
https://joind.in/talk/38014
Feedback Please :)