Ask HN: I want my tech lead's job | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I want my tech lead's job

69 pointsthrowawaywasd43 comments

Tech lead was promoted from individual contributor during a time the company was struggling to hire. He didn't want to be the lead but succumbed to the pressure (and the inevitability of looking bad and never be able to grow within the company).

Long story short, he's terrible and it shows. The team is a mess, lots of silos, morale is low, difficulty in meeting commitments, etc.

I think I can do better (and have done at other companies but was hired as an individual contributor here) and I also think no amount of coaching can help him after all these years.

What do I do?

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You’re going to want to change your mindset from “I want _their_ job” to “I want to be a tech lead”. Some things that you can do:

1. Observe and understand what the mistakes exactly are that they are making. Note the consequences. Understand what types of “mistakes” are high-impact versus low-impact. Be humble and approach with an open mind, there’s lots to learn about yourself and understanding what are mistakes with remedies and what are stylistic differences.

2. Offer assistance to the lead and do your best to make your team successful. A rising tide lifts all ships.

3. Make your career goals explicitly clear to your manager. Find ways to work together collaboratively to make your career successful and mutually beneficial there.

To reiterate — be humble. “No amount of coaching” has classically not been true in my experience. Usually what the case ends up being is that the organization has multi-layered problems and people are stuck in unsupported positions with less control than you might think. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way — I too started moving into tech lead roles with a similar mindset. Defeating that mindset is absolutely a prerequisite to being ready to be a true, good lead.

>> Offer assistance to the lead and do your best to make your team successful. A rising tide lifts all ships.

It doesn't work like that in practice. If you're much more skilled than the tech lead and the CEO/CTO is not promoting you. You need to leave ASAP because they will never promote you and you're wasting your time; if that situation ever happens in a company, it means that the company doesn't value talent. Maybe the CEO/CTO is friends with the tech lead or there is some other reason but whatever that reason is, there should be no substitute for talent.

If you're truly talented, then find another company which follows this philosophy.

I very much agree with this. I started out (and remained for years) in the camp of "a rising tide lifts all boats," but after repeated sessions in the school of life I see that it really isn't the case. There are political reasons for the current structure, and it would take a mountain of technical evidence to overturn it, assuming even that would get it done.

The best thing to do is find a new company, and get hired into the role you actually want.

It's not either/or. Unless you are suggesting s/he quit while looking for the next role, there's still the question of what to do meanwhile. In my experience it's never a bad idea to do a good job at your job while you're there.

Why do a good job for a company which is headed by jerks who don't give a crap about you? Ultimately the proceeds of your great work will go directly into their pockets. If they're real jerks, I'd much rather dedicate my energy to screwing them over on my way out. These sociopaths never reciprocate good deeds no matter what anyway, so the cost of burning the bridge is 0. However, the satisfaction from watching them fail after you leave and the added self-respect you get out of it is priceless.

So I am actually speaking from personal experience so this does 100% happen, we could have a discussion about the relative occurrences, but I don’t even know that those numbers exist.

I understand that certain personality types really latch onto this idea of the ladder climbing thing as a battleground where you need to shove people off to move up. Shit, I was that person once upon a time! But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can do what I say, and things will work out more often than not. When they don’t work out you’ll have accumulated good will & tradable skills along the road. And you may even feel like a better person for it.

My experience with many different companies for over a decade is very different. Most of the companies I worked with were cut-throat and treated everyone as disposable; even their top talent.

While I agree with this, one should also make sure to consider that they're not as talented as they believe themselves to be. In my experience most folks who would proclaim that they're clearly better than their tech lead clearly aren't.

This is really good advice and the same advice I got from our VP in a similar situation. Make it clear to your manager what you're about to do and then work with your lead to elevate the team up. It will show and in most cases you will be rewarded for it. You may not get to be tech lead of the team you're currently on, but it will work to your career advantage. It can actually look bad on you as an employee if you're aware of certain shortcomings and not really trying to do anything about it other than get a new title.

People seek leadership, regardless of who provides it. That said, don't be a dick and actively undermine the tech lead with the team (especially behind his/her back), that makes you just as bad or even worse.

That said, you can start providing leadership by helping people get back on the right track, and help work on team morale. You should "help" the tech lead even if they don't want it (aren't asking for it) by helping people get organized, see the true schedule and make sure work is done timely as best you can. Help people see things can be different, everyone just has to get on the same page etc. Challenge the tech leads timelines/estimates directly but not by being actively confrontational but showing why you feel the estimate is low or wrong. For example, if you and the team feel it is a 4 week effort for a feature set but the lead is saying 2 weeks, challenge the details on why it should be 4 weeks, bring up all the time sensitive tasks he/she is glossing over. Doing this in a meeting with the team and tech lead during planning is good, as long as you are doing it respectfully and with the goal of getting the best result -- the team will support you if you are right. You won't be able to fix all problems, but you can have a huge impact on a team if you demonstrate and provide leadership. I have personally done this in the past and it makes a huge difference for teams.

Work on the team morale by talking to people about non-work things, get to know them and use some humor and get people having some fun. It amazes me how many engineering leaders just don't get how people work & function. Getting people to smile and have a little fun makes a huge difference in how they work and who they will support.

If the leadership team above your tech lead is decent, they'll see the differences and you will likely be moved to a different role where you can have a bigger impact. Don't hide that you are helping (you have to be your own cheerleader to some degree) but don't run around beating on your chest either. Humble but not hiding is how I like to describe it.

First, how do you know it's the tech lead's "fault" and not an issue with company culture? Yes, your tech lead may indeed not be the best lead ever, but only too often is this a reflection of overall company culture.

Second, how do you know he's uncoachable? Have you tried? Does the company even offer coaching for new managers? I've run into this far too often that as great engineer, somehow you're supposed to know how to manage people and it shows.

Third and most importantly, given the environment why do you think you can do better? You say you have worked at that level before so obviously you have some experience, but do you see all the obstacles that your current tech lead is facing?

Here's what I would do, based on the fairly limited information you provided:

- Help your tech lead. Make her/him look at least better and try to see if you can affect team culture and morale. Unless it's a company culture issue, this should get recognised (often with a promotion) and you can get a better idea if it's actually an issue with your lead and not the company. It sounds like you came onboard after their promotion so you might not know what sort of dumpster fire they inherited. What I wouldn't do is play political games to undermine the lead - if I as a manager would find out about something like that, you'd be out the door quicker than you can say "but they don't know what they're doing".

- Second, I'd keep an eye out for other job opportunities. It sounds like the issue may well be considerably bigger than an involuntary tech lead. Sometimes you got to know when to bail.

I agree with all of this, additionally, if a manager reads HN this is a great question to poison the well.

"Look manager, HN thinks that the bad (by fiat from the OP) team lead should be removed."

I personally know people playing such games.

You asked for opinion and here’s mine: leave the team or leave the company.

With the limited amount of info that you’re providing, it looks like you’re trying to fight a decision that upper management made. Not only you don’t like this person, but you crave his/her position. This won’t end well IMHO.

Specially, if you’re in a corporate environment, you’ll most likely achieve nothing and you may demoralize yourself further.

I agree. I would say schedule a skip-level meeting with his manager and express your concerns. Ask him to be open and honest. If his manager does not recognize or is not willing to make the change, then either leave the team or the company.

Yes, its quite possible the next layer up know there's a problem and want to fix it, but don't know they have someone willing to step up if they moved the original tech lead somewhere better suited to their talents

Alternatively they may know about similar position elsewhere they could move you to

Finally they may think you're a total muppet and think far too highly of yourself, which is useful to know (you either are a muppet, or you need to leave the company)

If your colleague doesn't want the role, and is struggling, just go talk to them. Maybe it's some sort of sharing of the responsibilities of the role between the two of you. Maybe you both work with their boss (your boss too?) to transition them out of the role. Maybe they tell you "no, I got this", which informs some of the next steps you need to take.

I've seen the exact situation you're describing a few times, and in each time the person was happy to abdicate. While that's not always going to happen, sometimes people are happy to get the relief of not carrying that burden anymore.

Best of luck!

I agree. Where I work being tech lead is mostly a chore, an extra really ill-defined work load that doesn't even pay extra (being prepared to take up the role when asked is something expected of people being paid as medior/senior developers).

Talking to tech lead may lead you to the conclusion that you should just work on improving what you think needs improving, it's possible that actually wearing the "tech lead" hat is more trouble than it's worth.

This reads exactly the same as "I want this girl, but she has a boyfriend". And the answer is exactly the same: you likely can't -- maybe you can, or maybe you can't, but you'll end up wasting a whole lot of time and effort on something that is not worthwhile.

There are other fish in the sea. Time to start looking for a new position.

>This reads exactly the same as "I want this girl, but she has a boyfriend".

This is exactly how it reads -- OP sounds like he has a streak of arrogance and entitlement.

That’s not how it sounds to me. It’s entirely possible that someone less competent is in a position higher than yours.

Also modesty won’t get you anywhere in your career.

If you interfere in a romance, their partner may break your nose. If you interfere with the healthy operation of your team, your boss may dismiss you.

If you cannot muster empathy for others, at least muster an awareness of the consequences of your actions.

Modesty and arrogance aren't true opposites. It's quite common, especially with more junior developers, to overestimate one's own skills and underestimate other's.

Not having some sense of modesty and trying to step on others to get to the top will win you more enemies than friends and someone who is unpopular with their colleagues doesn't usually do a very good job at leading.

>It’s entirely possible that someone less competent is in a position higher than yours.

Remember all the so called competencies mentioned are assessed by OP. It could well be the case that the CTO is actually very competent and OP isn't.

Never rely on a self assessment to determine competence.

> It’s entirely possible that someone less competent is in a position higher than yours.

So?

I was in your exact same position. No amount of perseverance and high quality work convinced management I would be a much better fit than the current lead, even if it was obvious to everybody in the team.

It took almost a year, and the lead organically destroyed himself: the project became an unmanageable mess, people were uninspired and almost nothing was delivered. One whole year.

Management abruptly decided to fire the lead and gave me the opportunity: with bitterness in my mouth, I did it and the project was a success from every point of view: people were happy, the technical problems were solved with an eye towards scalability and future (unfortunately we had to throw away 90% of what was done earlier and rebuild it based on common building blocks idiomatic within the company), and I went to battle with management whenever unreasonable requests would come through in order to avoid engineers burning out.

It took several months of hard work: eventually, when the project was almost completely on track, they removed me and installed another lead, with the excuse “You have done a really fantastic job recovering the ship and we are really grateful! Now that the project is stable We are putting someone with better management experience so you can focus on what’s important, the code”. I kept asking for feedback, and received nothing but praises for “saving the project and inspiring the team”. It left me baffled. I quit shortly after.

Coworkers later told me that they were quite uninspired by this new guy who introduced a very micro management style without having ever gained trust of the team, and several of them quit or moved to other teams. What a bummer.

I really will never understand why management doesn’t strongly favor promoting from the inside and prefer taking chances with external hires with whom they spent 60 minutes interviewing and will most likely turn out to be bozos with an inflated resume (which is even harder to spot than engineers with technical skills) screwing up the team.

Good tech leads lead by example in their IC role so they become natural successors into such a role. The give-me-your-job-because-I'm-better mentality rarely works and only causes resentment all around.

If you want to be a tech lead and not someone's job all you have to do is go out of your way to own the things you are directly working on and go out of your way to help those who are working with you to achieve shared common goals. Once you have done this multiple times, its easy to schedule a meeting with your management and pitch the idea of you doing the same and more but this time with Tech Lead's title and if that doesn't happen go look out for opportunities outside your company.

It won’t happen. People that do this are generally mocked as useful fools, it’s a “Thanks, for setting your new expectations! Now enjoy living up to them for zero additional pay. When you get tired of it we’ll be sure to punish you.”

The OP should just offer to management to be a co-tech lead for additional pay, citing the belief that he can help and otherwise do nothing nefarious or antisocial and look elsewhere for work. He’s already either viewed favorably or not by upper management, which will determine this. It’s largely not performance based, he has to be competent, but liked. People won’t agree with my idea because it’s not “the ideal world and way it’s supposed to be“, but it’s based off my very hard earned experience.

Two things are true in this industry, no one wants to pay and it’s not a meritocracy. That’s all smoke and mirrors, it’s pure capitalism.

Some things I wonder about:

- You've done better at other companies – so why were you hired in the position you have now? Aren't you overqualified?

- The evidence you provide for him being terrible isn't totally sound (The team is a mess, lots of silos, morale is low, difficulty in meeting commitments); could there be other factors here? Perhaps he's overloaded by his superiors?

- Is the company successful despite his shortcomings? Does his team succeed more than it fails?

- What makes you sure you've done better?

I think close to half of the devs (or more) that I've worked with have had issues with their team leads and thought they could do better. It's never that simple. For example, I was with a company once and the CTO was really struggling to manage individual wants and needs, began offloading sprint management to new team leads, and everyone thought he was really shitting the bed. It turned out he was working with some security auditors to get many of our systems vetted and ready for some high profile customers who had very strict, extensive requirements. The customers were bringing millions into our company and the CTO was making it happen, and everyone just assumed he was totally blowing it (rather than just wanting to help the guy out). He was also working on making us GDPR compliant at the time. What's your tech lead struggling with exactly? It could be legitimate.

Start fixing everything you may think it's not done properly. Enforce roles and demand accountability from eveyrone, including commitments, sometimes, teams members are the ones hijacking the lead. Quickly get rid of rotten apples and get the team working again under a new flow that makes eveyrone as much happy as possible to do.

I was in this very same situation for several years with a manager who just clearly didn’t have what it took to manage people. He grew, as a result of being on a small team early, to oversee the largest team in the company only to eventually lose all of his direct reports and become an individual contributor.

The problem was (and is) despite horrible performance over several years, he’s still with the company making the same salary he was as a manager because he’s friends with the CEO.

I was able to make it to a prominent role within the company by playing ball and pulling levers at the right time, so it is possible, but the moral of the story is if you work for a company that rewards that sort of underperformance, it’s likely always going to be a problem as long as leadership remains the same. You’re probably better off to search for a new role - which is exactly what I ended up doing in the long run anyway.

I'm in roughly the same boat though rather than "take their job" I was trying to create a new position and split the existing team in two. Ultimately this hasn't worked out (the conversation has been going on for months and no end in sight) and now I'm actively seeking new opportunities.

It's pretty shitty working in a team where the leadership is utterly ineffective. Ultimately it's managements decision and more than likely they will back the existing structure even if it has problems.

Help the person. Try to see if he/she is willing to listen to you. If you help him do his job better it could get noticed. Even if its not, you can put it in your cv and use it at interviews for similar positions. Doing this might get you fired (i mean if i was under attack this way and would have the authority to do it, i would), but as long as you are 'trying to help' you always have cover so it's worth a shot.

Depends 99% on your relationships on how to proceed.

Assuming good ones, I’d tell the truth to the leads boss. Say you think the lead is struggling, way you think you could do better, and in the meantime provide as much help to both the lead and the leads team as possible.

If you tell your boss you’re going to take a more active role and it things start smoothing out, you’ll have a very good case.

Talk with the lead. Share your concerns, as a member of the team, about how the team's needs are not being met. Be specific. In this situation, you did or didn't do something, and it had this effect.

Maybe your current tech lead doesn't like being lead? I'd talk to him and ask him how he is doing and see where that leads. (combine with other incredible advice from other comments)

One of the most diplomatic ways to deal with a problematic manager is to help them find a new job.

OP sounds like he/she wants the title more than the responsibility. Software is a team game.

You talk to him and everyone else with decisions power.

quit. 100% serious. there is nothing to be done here.

I'd advise giving your current lead every benefit of the doubt to figure out if the problem is truly a mismatch of their skills to leadership or if there's something happening beyond your team. In the latter case you may not want the job...

Your lead was around when hiring was tough. Moving from IC to eng lead is the clearest growth path for an IC that I can think of, so I'm not sure that aligns with their rationale of "never be[ing] able to grow within the company." Knowing nothing about this person, I think there's a chance there's information you don't have here (not your fault, you weren't around to get it!). "I'm a better IC than lead" is a solid political answer--and it's true for many/most? of us. But it's also a _safe_ answer.

Why were jobs unattractive to external candidates during the time he was hesitant to take on engineering leadership? If the answer is "no one wants to relocate to our un-hip city" that's understandable. Most other reasons? Dig. Keep in mind this person, regardless of skills fit or raw coding prowess, has been exposed to different information and experiences at the company than you have. They have insight into culture and middle management that you might not.

Part 2, to actually answer "What do I do?" - OK, so you gathered data and the lead is indeed simply not a good fit in their role. Every other team around you is firing on all cylinders - in fact they whisper about your team's localized problems. Everyone on your team would be supportive of a change. What then?

If you're going to go to your direct manager or skip-level and ask for a bigger role, make sure you have a good argument from their perspective of why. I'm sure this is in the 80,000 negotiating books that are out there that I haven't read a single one of. Doesn't matter how you see the world, it matters how they do.

Knowing nothing about how awesome you're doing in your current role: what have you done for the company recently? Do skip-level managers know you? Do you have a reputation as a problem-finder and fixer who can work across teams and just gets things done? Have you been owning projects mid-level managers have heard of, even if you're not team lead? Are you "the hero of GDPR compliance" or even "person who wrote the extension that fixes my email nit?" If so, awesome, say that. "I think I'm a better candidate than person X" and "I had a similar role at my last company" are less likely to meet the bar.

If your team's problems are affecting your personal output, then unfortunately that's going to make your case a little more difficult :(. If that's true, try to find a role that lets you show IC skills at the "very good" level (need not be "incredible") while also adding an informal leadership merit badges here or there and getting at least some reputation beyond your team. That's what I've seen in pretty much every case of IC getting leadership responsibilities (which isn't a formal promotion at our company).

Just get enough info in advance to be 100% sure you want the job :).

Semi-related concern if you did take on this team's leadership: are there coworkers that think they could do better than you if you did get promoted? That can cause some people to find other opportunities. Make sure you'd be ok with that.

hire a hitperson

commit the crime, but describe it with politically correct words.

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