I’ve recently discovered the role of a tech lead and it is something I’ve become interested in.
In this article, Matt Swanson shares his experience as a tech lead on a development team he was on. I thought he had some really good points.
A strategy allows the team to rally behind shared values, instead of saying “that’s just how our testing was setup when we started”.
In this point, he’s talking about how he approached testing for the team. Instead of laying out a set of rules or guidelines, he came up with a strategy.
Unit test when it provides value. Integration test the happy path. Always use your judgement.
In implementing a strategy he leaves room for discussion and participation and not a “my way or the highway” approach.
I also enjoyed his point about how a tech lead should also be actively working within the codebase. From what I gather, a tech lead’s role seems to be a little less code intense, but I can see how being removed from the codebase entirely can cause the lead to be less relevant and prevent him or her from seeing potential roadblocks for the team and ways to streamline workflows.