I’ve been assigned as a tech lead for a new project, and I’ve been on it for three months now. The team is pretty well staffed and they are all senior (6 people), so I am basically not doing much: - I try to have architectural and design discussions, but it’s useless since they are good so they can come up with the best architecture on their own (I’m not under qualified, but they are as qualified as me basically). - I try to get myself assigned some critical part of the code, but they are better and faster developers than me (more specialized) so they are handling it themselves efficiently. - I try to be helpful on cross-team dependencies, but more often than not it’s useless since all the team members are well connected and have no problem interacting with other teams. Basically the only thing I’m doing is reporting to management and upper stakeholders the progress of the project, under the form of well crafted technical demos, and highlights of what is coming and what we are working on. Both management and the team seem to appreciate my role since I give ample credit to all the team members and never blow my horn, but I feel incredibly useless. I used to be a hardcore software engineer crafting advanced pieces of code and architectures, and now I’m basically sitting idle all day, reading and testing other people’s code. TC: 350k, 8yoe
TC or GTFO :)
You are winning dude. Find a hobby, do some travel, start a side business not competing with your current one. No need to overthink this one or look a gift horse in the mouth.
“I don’t write real code anymore but my team loves me and I sit in meetings all day” +1 winning
Which company?
It’s a medium sized startup in the valley
That’s leadership. Running block for your team, keeping them happy and showcasing their strengths.
Yeah but what about the fact that I’m not doing anything substantial myself?
You are. You just don’t understand.
Sounds great. Congratulations leading a good team.
But I’m not. If I wasn’t there the team would technically operate the same way they are now. So I’m not really a tech lead.
Consider yourself lucky that you have a great team, it's a good problem to have. If you are really looking for something to do, start looking at inefficiencies and see how you could improve processes. You can start investigating new technologies and introduce them to your team. You could use your downtime to learn new skills that would help your team and your career progression. You could also ask your manager to give you more responsibilities or a new team to lead and then you can long for the days that you were leading a self sufficient team.
Isn't it great opportunity to ...?
Ask your team individually what’s something they wish they had implemented in the build chain that they haven’t had time for, you’ll find some stuff to lead on there
Umm yeah, do exactly opposite this ⬆️
You sound like you're doing a great job tbh.
Lol
💯