
Ask HN: I want my tech lead's job - throwawaywasd
Tech lead was promoted from individual contributor during a time the company was struggling to hire. He didn&#x27;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).<p>Long story short, he&#x27;s terrible and it shows. The team is a mess, lots of silos, morale is low, difficulty in meeting commitments, etc.<p>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.<p>What do I do?
======
awinder
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.

~~~
cryptica
>> 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.

~~~
awinder
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.

~~~
cryptica
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.

------
davismwfl
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.

------
TheMog
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.

~~~
dnqasd
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.

------
outime
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.

~~~
flavmartins
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.

~~~
isostatic
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)

------
wjossey
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!

~~~
Scarblac
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.

------
charlesdm
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.

~~~
s_dev
>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.

~~~
why-oh-why
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.

~~~
lidHanteyk
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.

------
deanmoriarty
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.

------
sys_64738
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.

------
HHalvi
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.

~~~
BuckRogers
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.

------
steve_adams_86
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.

------
meerita
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.

------
darrmit
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.

------
aswerty
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.

------
timwaagh
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.

------
eof
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.

------
troelsSteegin
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.

------
RobertRoberts
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)

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

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

------
atmosx
You talk to him and everyone else with decisions power.

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

------
supercollision
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.

------
moocowtruck
hire a hitperson

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

