Not Your Everyday Tech Lead: What Does It Mean To Be TL in a Lean Software Company?

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The experience of being a Tech Lead can change from organisation to organisation, from being an ivory tower architect to getting stuck in the weeds with complex technical challenges. A Lean Software Company is one whose approach is deeply rooted in optimising customer value through studying the techniques used in Toyota’s Production System.

Old-school Agile also has many roots in Lean principles - Kanban, for example, is a tool used on the Toyota production line. But what can the manufacturing of cars teach us about software development?

Join me for this exploration through the world of a TL as experienced within a Lean Software Company as I reveal some of the secrets that allow these companies to deliver higher-quality software at speed.

This talk has been presented at C3 Dev Festival 2024, check out the latest edition of this Tech Conference.

FAQ

A tech lead in a Lean software company creates and maintains the conditions for developers to deliver value effortlessly. This involves identifying problems in the working conditions and solving them to ensure a high-performing team.

A tech lead is not just a senior developer. While a senior developer focuses on technical issues and coding, a tech lead is responsible for creating the conditions for the team to succeed, which includes problem-solving and improving workflows.

The 'cycle of firefighting' refers to the constant handling of recurring problems without solving their root causes. This can lead to burnout and inefficiencies as the tech lead is constantly shifting focus between coding and resolving issues.

The maker-manager model divides roles into makers, who directly create the product or service, and managers, who create and maintain the conditions for makers to deliver value. In a Lean company, tech leads are seen as managers.

Lean principles originated from the Toyota production lines and focus on problem-solving to make incremental improvements. They aim to create stable and efficient workflows, which help in delivering high-quality outcomes reliably.

Standardization in Lean methodology involves defining the state of the art for work processes to create stable conditions. This helps in identifying when things are off standard, making it easier to solve problems and maintain quality.

Andon is the surfacing and visualization of problems that occur in work processes, while Genchi Genbutsu means going to the actual place to understand the real conditions and issues faced by workers. Both practices help in effective problem-solving.

Tech leads should focus on identifying small, specific problems and solving their root causes. They should use the 4M model (Maker, Machine, Methods, Materials) to categorize and address issues, ensuring continuous improvement.

The 4M model categorizes inputs that go into making high-performing teams: Maker (health, knowledge, skills), Machine (codebase, equipment, tooling), Methods (work standards), and Materials (requirements, designs). Problems are solved differently based on these categories.

Focusing on standardization and problem-solving helps create stable working conditions, reduces recurring issues, and improves team efficiency. It allows tech leads to maintain high performance and deliver value effortlessly.

James Haworth Wheatman
James Haworth Wheatman
20 min
15 Jun, 2024

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Video Summary and Transcription

The Talk discusses the role of a tech lead in a lean software company and the challenges they face. It emphasizes the importance of problem-solving and continuous improvement in software development. The speaker shares their personal struggles as a tech lead and the need to prioritize between being a maker and a manager. The Talk also highlights the significance of identifying root causes and solving problems to prevent future issues. Overall, it provides insights into the role of a tech lead and the role problem solving plays in creating optimal conditions for developers.

1. Introduction to the Role of Tech Lead

Short description:

Today, I want to talk to you about the role of tech lead. I want to share an underrepresented perspective on what it means to be a tech lead in a lean software company. As a tech lead, I saw the role as a senior developer who could solve any technical issue, but I was mistaken. This misconception had costly consequences on my first project as a tech lead.

Today, I want to talk to you about the role of tech lead. You may already have some impressions of the role, both positive and negative. Perhaps you're a developer aspiring to take the next step, or you've recently been promoted and you're finding your feet in the role, or perhaps you've been a tech lead for years.

I want to share what I see to be an underrepresented perspective within the industry, and hopefully you can gain some value from that. That is what it means to be a tech lead in a lean software company.

My name is James and I've been working as a tech lead for the past two years now, building full-stack web and mobile applications at Theodo UK, which is a lean software consultancy. But actually, I joined Theodo as a developer, so this was me, not this. And consequently, I built a picture of what it meant to be tech lead by paying attention to the tech leads that I had had over the years.

There were a few things that I watched them do. They defined the project architecture and cleared up any difficult technical uncertainty. It helped me when I was stuck. They were always the person to get me out of a sticky situation. They managed to build up really good trust with our clients, and they were also able to drive the project as a whole towards success. And so, essentially, I saw the tech lead as a senior developer, a person with the technical experience to solve any technical issue that might arise, rather than an entirely different role within the team. And this was a fundamental misunderstanding of the role that was very costly for me personally.

On my first project as a brand new tech lead, I was working internationally with a large management consultancy, and we were traveling to see our clients every two weeks or so on site, building a greenfield e-commerce platform to sell photovoltaic cells to be installed on private properties. So, let's see how this misconception, that tech leads are essentially senior developers, affected my daily work. I would pick up a ticket and start coding. After all, I'm a developer, so I should be working on tickets.

2. Struggles as a Tech Lead

Short description:

Often, complex problems interrupted my workflow as a tech lead. One issue was caused by a change in the data type without updating the TypeScript types, leading to a recurring bug. Despite appearing as a highly functional team, I was burning out due to the cycle of firefighting. It was a pivotal interaction with the CEO that reframed my understanding of the tech lead role. I realized I was trying to do two jobs: developer and tech lead, leading to struggles with interruptions and neglecting tech lead responsibilities.

Often, this could be something quite complex. For example, we were working on some pretty unique React components that allowed a user to select their roof on a map and see a visual representation of their solar panels that would be installed on their roof.

Then, a problem would interrupt my flow. And this was usually a developer asking for help with something. Perhaps one of the developers was struggling to handle a data coming directly from our CMS. After some time debugging, in the end, it turned out that someone had made a change to the data type in Contentful without updating the TypeScript types on the front end, and this had caused a bug.

So, we updated TypeScript and we fixed the bug. But now I'm behind with my own work. So, the components that I'm building are core to our flow. So, I hurry back to coding and try and get back in the zone after switching contexts. However, because I only addressed the symptoms, the problem reoccurs, and two weeks later, we've got another bug because someone else made a change to Contentful without updating TypeScript.

The result, after about six months on the project, I realized I was starting to burn out. We call this the cycle of firefighting. Sure, from the outside, it seems like we were a highly functional team, and our clients were really happy. We were pushing new features on a daily basis, and I was keeping the developers afloat. But the effort was a lot, and I was definitely working harder and not smarter.

Fortunately, I've got a number of mentors at work to help me grow into the tech lead role, and they help me clarify a mental model of what I should be aiming for. So, after this low point, I actually had a pivotal interaction, which reframed my understanding of what it means to be tech lead.

During a company-wide training, the CEO offhandedly asked the managers to raise their hands, and she was making a point that was geared towards them, and I didn't raise my hand. So, she looked around the room, a bit confused, and noticed me. She said, come on, James, why isn't your hand up? Of course you're a manager. You're a tech lead. The problem was, I didn't see myself as a manager. To me, that seemed like a dirty word.

I thought that manager was someone who coordinates the work within their team, but doesn't actually do the work themselves, and it turns out that our CEO had a completely different understanding of what the word manager should be. After that training, through discussion with her and others, I learned about the mental model of management that we use in our group. The reason that I was struggling with the cycle of firefighting and burnout was because I was trying to do two jobs.

On the one hand, I was struggling to be a developer getting my tickets done because I could be interrupted at any point in the day, needing to jump in, help out with tickets of the developers, which interrupted my own development flow. On the other hand, because I was always behind with my development, I neglected some of the responsibilities of the tech lead in order to play catch up with my tickets. And this meant that the team ran into some problems over and over, and it was a constant uphill battle to stay at our team velocity as the project went on.

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