You're a team lead. Now what?

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4 pointscientifico2 comments

This is from a software development view, but I keep seeing this problem where the lead is promoted from a well performing individual. Leading a team is greatly different than shipping code so that drives the new leads to focus on learning how to manage that part of the process, usually leaving less time to work on the code. After a while there start to be a disconnect between the lead and the code base causing friction on performing as a developer. So why do we keep promoting the great coders to team leads where their output as a developer drops dramatically?

Thanks, I agree.

I’ve been asking myself the same thing for years. My take:

1. Peter Principle: people get promoted to their level of incompetence.

2. In many companies, it’s the only way to increase salary.

3. Some developers think it gives them more leverage or impact.

But honestly, most of the time it’s simpler: stakeholders want more output, and the best dev gets pushed into leading because there’s no one else.

It’s often less a “promotion” and more a gap the company needs to fill.

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