Tag: tech-lead

  • Inheriting a Struggling Team

    - Low morale, technical debt, unclear direction. What to do when you inherit a team that's already struggling, and where to start.

  • Giving Hard Feedback

    - Performance issues, attitude problems, skill gaps. How to give hard feedback that's direct without being cruel, and that actually leads to change.

  • Making Technical Decisions Stick

    - Technical decisions get revisited, ignored, or forgotten unless you make them stick. ADRs, RFCs, or just conversations? Match the documentation to the decision's weight.

  • Scope Creep and How to Fight It

    - Scope creep kills projects slowly. One small addition at a time, until the original timeline is impossible. Here's how to recognise it early and have the conversation.

  • When to Say No

    - Saying no is one of the most important skills for a tech lead. To PMs, to stakeholders, sometimes to your own team. Here's how to do it well.

  • Managing Up

    - Your engineering manager needs information from you to do their job. Here's how to keep them informed, advocate for your team, and influence decisions without authority.

  • Working with Designers

    - The tech lead and designer relationship has unique friction points. When to push back on designs, how to collaborate early, and handling the 'pixel perfect' conversation.

  • Working with Product Managers

    - The tech lead and PM relationship can be the most productive partnership in a team or a source of constant friction. Here's how to make it work.

  • Running Effective 1:1s as a Tech Lead

    - As a tech lead, 1:1s are your most important meeting. Not status updates, not technical discussions. Real conversations about how people are doing and where they're going.

  • Balancing Coding and Leading

    - The hardest part of becoming a tech lead is figuring out how much code to write. Too much and you're not leading. Too little and you lose touch. Here's how...

  • Your First 90 Days as Tech Lead

    - The first three months as a tech lead set the tone for what follows. Here's what to focus on, what to ignore, and the mistakes most people make.

  • What is a Tech Lead?

    - The tech lead role means different things at different companies. At smaller organisations, it usually means doing both technical leadership and people work. Here's what that actually looks like.