L4, $270k, 3yoe If not then how do you get there from L4? Switched orgs late last year. My new TL (L5) left and another L5 became TL. This team is the first time I've seen TLs who don't code a lot. Neither seems to code at all. But TL is still the primary code reviewer for our projects. Rather than coding, it seems like they do more project management work like assign projects or sub projects and sprint tasks. I think they also have meetings with other teams' TLs to sync on project requirements and statuses. I'm surprised because I was gathering requirements and providing statuses in meetings before getting promoted from L3 in my previous org and now I just take assigned requirements as an L4. Seems like by switching orgs after promo I've been demoted from solving (really minor) business problems for which more code was often the solution, to writing code (sometimes with a limited amount of design) to implement solutions that have already been decided on somewhere else. Is that how most places work? Previous TLs would delegate more than just the implementation and I found that much more interesting. One thing I don't like is they don't seem to have the familiarity with the codebase of previous TLs. If I want their opinion on an implementation tradeoff they usually turn it into a coaching session where they ask questions to get me to think through it. I hate that because I usually have a decision in mind and just want their opinion as a quick sanity check in case there's some legacy factor I've missed. I really started to wonder about this since a few days ago when my TL sat down and guided me through our internal source control UI to explain there's a really nice feature that tells you who last modified a line. It felt like they were trying to follow instructions on mentoring that they found in a book.
Is L5 tech lead at google? Isn’t it senior swe? I thought it’s L6 at Google considered as tech lead.
TL can be anyone. I've seen L4 TL on a three-person project with two L3s. It's not a formal job title, it's basically whoever is the one making decisions for a (portion of) a project.
Interesting. I haven’t had a single person to pivot on the technical decision for others in my teams except at one company. But he was grandpa like very senior tech lead everyone at the org respected.
L5s code, yes for sure. But the roles that L5s can play is maybe the most diverse of any other level. They may also direct the contributions of more junior swe's through TL roles. Or do both, they aren't mutually exclusive. Its during the process to L6 that many will switch away from IC work in order to have more impact. But many L5s never do that and stay as high performing coders for a long time.
That’s good mentorship imo. If you’re looking for sanity check - be upfront about it. As a TL - I’d rather try to spend time to level you up and mentor - such that you are comfortable making such decisions. If I just give you the answer - then you’ll come back to me for something similar. I’d rather teach you so that you don’t have to come to me for anything that is remotely similar.
It depends on the team & work culture, and both have pros and cons.