These Things Made Me More Effective As A Tech Lead

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Hey folks, we're going to the experience dev subreddit. This one's going to be a topic that's I guess the question was how or what things made you uh I don't know more efficient as a like senior engineer or tech lead. So someone just looking for examples from others around things that they leaned into that uh that kind of help them out in in this type of role. So, I figured I'd talk about a couple of different things as they come to mind. Um, full disclaimer, like sometimes videos like this, uh, I obviously want them to be helpful for for anyone listening and watching. Uh, but it's also like I don't know, sometimes uh something I haven't really thought of until I'm going to speak about it. So, it's uh it's also a little bit of a a thought exercise for me, which I think is uh I don't know, a good opportunity for reflection.

I'm just giving you a disclaimer cuz like as I'm thinking about some of this stuff, I might go, "Oh yeah, like what about that?" Um so, if it seems a little scatterbrained, it's because uh it's because it is. And that's what it's going to look like. So a couple of different things that I'll I'll just mention right now are that uh I think if you were to ask this question to different people, you'll probably get all sorts of different answers like maybe some more focus on like the the very technical side of things. Um, and I think for myself, I would go more of the other direction, which would be probably more around like soft skill type things and less uh like hyper specific about technical. Just as a heads up, like I can already tell that's where my brain is. It's kind of leaning to.

It's not like, oh, I did these very specific technical things and that made me a better engineer. Um, so I think one of the first things that comes to mind is uh is around actually this might sound counterintuitive but like being more hands-off. And what I mean by that is that um I find that not like I've noticed this for myself, but also when I'm like sort of uh coaching and mentoring other people that are moving into senior or are senior plus already. Um where because people go to them as someone who is a subject matter expert or they look up to them, right? And these are all good things of course. Uh there there seems to be maybe the word I want is like pressure or expectation. Um where this comes from is I I would say maybe just like you know given that there's someone that people look up to.

There's this expectation that like they're they're involved in in things, right? Like give me your input on this so that I can help make uh a better decision, right? And again, I think that's a good thing like being in a senior plus position is I would say there is probably some expectation where you're participating that way. But I think the difference is that this expectation can feel like um almost like you're a gatekeeper on it. And I don't think that's what the expectation is that you need to sign off on every like line of code, every decision. But given that people come to you for this kind of thing, right? Or that sometimes you feel like you need to, you know, be in tune with all of the decisions and stuff so that you can uh sort of remain knowledgeable um across a wider surface area.

It almost feels like you need to be involved in every decision. And I would say like one of the things that helped me in particular was that you know understanding that you you don't make every decision. You need to trust that other people can make decisions right. So if you are going to be someone that people come to for insight or like hey help me make this decision or uh you know help me sign off on this design it doesn't mean that because they do that it must be everything. And maybe that's obvious to some people, but I like I said, I've seen this for myself and I've seen this when coaching others where um especially when they start to feel like overwhelmed or stressed like, oh man, like you know, there's so much to stay on top of, like how can I possibly and like, hey, it's good that people are coming to me, but like also how do I get my own stuff done now?

Um, I I actually think that it can almost perpetuate the challenge because if if people come to you and they're looking for insight, they're looking for your guidance or assistance, whatever it is, um, if the way that you provide that is like like I will don't worry, I will give you the final decision, right? I will give you the final decision or uh make this choice for you. Then it's almost like people end up learning like that is the expectation. So if they don't know they just go to you and it gets solved and so like the load doesn't get lightened. In fact it gets worse over time. So uh that's kind of part one. There's an extension to this which I'm going to talk about in just a moment. But um point being that I actually think that it's really good to be able to be in a position where you're offering insight and guidance and feedback to people.

Uh I think it's really good to be in a position where you you know you can try to have a view over these different moving pieces. But I do think that that means that you also need to trust and empower other people to make those decisions. So give them guidance, show them how you approach things. Teach them how you approach things. Uh you know, it's not wrong that if you do have to kind of make a decision for them, that's the end of the world. But I mean, don't don't make that the default. Teach them how you're doing it. Show them how they can arrive at the same type of thing and then empower them to make such decisions. And that way you don't need to be involved in every single decision because you are helping teach others how to make you know similar uh insightful grounded decisions.

Okay. Um so the extension to this is is just similar in a way where uh less about maybe like specific engineering decisions and more about just like helping. So this is a little bit more generic and uh I've talked about this on code commute a lot and it's not just applicable to like you know senior and senior plus uh but I I think that this comes up a lot uh especially at those levels and I would say like even if you're more junior right you're more junior you might still find yourself in a position like this but it's it is really just around helping people in general and kind of goes back do like uh what whatever the the saying is like teach a teach a man to fish and like whatever I can't remember what it is basically don't do the fishing for other people teach someone to fish and then then they'll be set.

So um the idea being that you know when people are asking for help uh don't don't do for them because again depending on the person especially um and I'm not like I'm going to say especially juniors but I don't mean that because like juniors suck or juniors are terrible or we don't need juniors. Uh, no. Um, I'm saying especially juniors because I think in my experience more often than not, you have people that at a junior level that um that can fall into this trap almost, which is there's hard problems to solve or things that are complex or things they simply don't know because they don't have the experience yet. And that's actually totally normal and totally expected. Like there's nothing nothing wrong with that.

like literally they are junior because they don't have the experience yet that's expected and so when they have questions um when you do things for them right so like hey like um I'm having you know trouble with uh setting something up or I'm having trouble uh making a decision on this or like whatever it is right um uh I'm trying to think of even it doesn't have to juniors. I want to think of an example like for me, right? Uh I I know there's an awesome principal engineer I work with. Um and like he's he's very very good at like finding information uh and like deeply understanding things. I think probably better than anyone I've ever met in my life. If I was like, "Hey, um, I don't know, think of like any anything that needs to be investigated." He's just so good at it.

I said, "Hey, I'm trying to, you know, work through this problem." It's almost like if I say what the problem is, immediately in his mind, he's like, "Here, like, he's like, I have to go look here, here, here. I have to figure out these sources of information. and I have to like cross check them and then here's how I dive into it. It's almost like I say the problem and he's like 50% of the way through like the exercise of like getting to the answer. And so I think for me there's always things that like I don't know, right? And so it could be uh I'm trying to solve a problem and I'm pretty sure we probably have like metrics on this or you know a data source I could query and or maybe a couple that I have to kind of aggregate across and

uh and like I don't know right lots of things that I simply don't know and so what would be helpful for me is like like I need to understand not only if we do have those data sources but almost like the next level back which is like the next time I have a question like this is there an obvious way that I can know where the data sources are or like I don't know like kind of like step back so that I don't even have to like question do we have data on this? Um, and interestingly enough, like this this person I'm talking about, they could solve my problem almost, I don't want to say almost instantly all the time, it just feels that way. And if they do solve my problem that way, it's extremely helpful in the exact moment. Obviously, right, I go from I have a problem to I don't have any problem at all.

Um, but it perpetuates it. Because the next time I have a problem, it's like it's I if I go to the same person, it gets solved like the exact same way very quickly. And so you might think, well, Nick, it sounds like then you don't have any problems. But the problem is now I I'm like heavily reliant on this person. So I joke with them, but I I will say to them, I've kind of told them this, right? Like please don't give me the answer. Uh, I'm not trying to like take more of your time on purpose, but if you can point me in the direction, like let me fumble a little bit so that so that I actually learn so that I do bother you less or when I bother you, it's because of like different types of things, not the same type of thing over and over.

So it it applies even for you know uh for myself but I do think that this is a bit of a trap that people can fall into for the same reasons I was talking about earlier which is like people come to you for help you're trying to help especially when it feels like you're under a lot of pressure. Okay, someone's got to move over folks. I'm going to miss my exit. Okay, let's figure this out. One more. Nice. We did it. Okay. Um, yeah, for the same types of reasons as before. More pressure on you. uh feels like you have less time, higher expectations, people, more and more people coming to you, and it seems like the the the quick way to solve this problem is to to give people the answer, right? It literally takes more time for you to teach people how to get the problem figured out themselves in a helpful way, right?

Like, here's how I would teach you how to go find this or whatever. like um and so if you're already feeling like you're underwater, you really want to spend time teaching someone um like if in the moment it feels like no, but I encourage you please like uh it sucks but like slow down so that you can speed up um and then try to yeah try to basically teach others. uh a little sort of like actionable tip that you can try because if you're like how do I even do that? Um if you were like okay someone's asking for help and like instinctively say you're remote right and instinctively you're instinctively can't speak you're like hey let's get on a call and like I'll screen share and I'll show you like what to do. Um if that feels like maybe a go-to I would just suggest like flip it around.

Let's get on a call. You screen share and then I'm going to tell you like where some things are, right? It could be that simple where you just have someone else doing the clicking, getting them to drive so that immediately, I'm not saying this is like solves everything, but immediately it's one more step of them actually doing something. You might be guiding them through it, but they're at least actively doing the thing. A weird alarm. That's It sounded like there was a an E. I don't know if you can hear it on the mic, but it sounded like there was an emergency vehicle coming up and I'm on a side street and I'm like there's there's nothing in front of me or behind me, but it was this building. That's weird. So, yeah. I think, you know, little tip like that. It's actionable. it's quick and makes starts making a difference right away.

So, I would recommend that. Um, a lot of Yeah, I think a lot of my sort of advice in in this area like around what I think worked well for me was kind of like it. Yeah, I think it just my meta point with this whole video is like it it almost feels like inverse from what I would have expected, right? It it has it always felt like, you know, pressure's on you. You must go do but it doesn't scale. And I think that's the meta point is like how do you take what you're doing and scale it? And I can tell you what doesn't scale is uh is basically you doing all of the things. It it just doesn't scale right. It's like this is why even like in a management position for me it's an extension of that. Um it's like I am the manager of the team but that doesn't mean that I do every single thing on the team.

like that would be insane and it doesn't scale. And it there's another sort of like level of abstraction to that which is like uh in my role if I were to like I'm still not like a senior a senior manager after like 13 years of doing this. I understand how it would work though. Um, and so for me to be in a position like that, it's like I also need to make space for the other managers that would be reporting to me to like to be able to learn. I can't solve their problems for them. Um, it's the same type of thing. It might be on different topics or different focus areas, but it's the same type of thing, right?

when you when you are trying to have a a bigger impact so or like scale your impact let's say um the way that you scale it is like you have two options in my opinion which is like you find a way to like empower others to be more effective or you physically put in more time and one of those is really not sustainable. I'll let you uh decide which one is not. What? There's no parking spots. Okay. Well, that sucks. Back around we go. I thought I was going to wrap up the video, but you're still stuck with me. Um, yeah, I think the scalability thing is my my takeaway. So, others might have like some of the really technical thoughts on on what work well for them. But mine is essentially around if I want to have, you know, if I want to apply my impact at a larger scale, I need to think about things differently.

There's literally no parking. This is trash. Okay, that's dumb. Across the street I go. Right here. Here's parking. 90m minute parking. Am I in a line? That's That's close enough. Cool. That's the video. Hope that helps. If you are senior plus and you have some cool experiences you want to share for things that work well for you, leave them in the comments. I think that'd be awesome. Um, and then yeah, of course, otherwise if you have questions or uh anything on software engineering career stuff you want answered, leave them below in the comments or go to codecommute.com. You can submit stuff anonymously that way and then I don't have to go to the experienced dev subreddit and pick topics from there. See you in the next one. Take care.