How to tech lead and survive

If you're in a tech lead role and struggling. Try this.

Make a mindset shift.

Ask yourself: "How can I not be the person who builds that?"

This will feel hard because for years you have been good at building. You're used to taking on the hardest problems.

You cannot continue to do that, plus everything else at the same time. Either the project will suffer, or you will.

Now, instead of opening an editor and writing code. You need to open a Slack or Zoom, and help other people get it done.

What code do you write?

Whatever helps the team win and keeps you available to context switch, answer questions and handle coordination problems.

Try:

• Reviewing code quickly
• Only writing code for anything off the critical path
• Adding tests, manual testing, focusing on quality
• Fixing bugs