This document discusses the role and responsibilities of a technical team lead. It begins by defining a technical team lead as a leader responsible for a development team who spends at least 30% of their time writing code. It then outlines the typical activities of a technical team lead, including coding (40% of time), design (30%), integration (15%), and other miscellaneous tasks (15%). It discusses the skills needed for the role, such as people skills, communication skills, and technical skills. It also provides advice on how to transition into a technical team lead role, such as getting the necessary skills, finding a mentor, and understanding different organizational structures.

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

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

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

28. 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

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

30. 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

31. Design

32. Design
Leading White boarding Sessions

33. Design

34. Design
Leading White boarding Sessions
Creating Expressive Documentation

35. A Picture Speaks A
Thousand Words

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

39. Integration

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

41. Misc

42. Skills

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

44. 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

45. How Do I Get There?

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

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

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

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

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

51. “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

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

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

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

55. Final Thoughts

56. Developers

57. Decision Makers

58. Questions

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