tgvashworth

In mid-2016 I became tech lead of the TweetDeck team at Twitter, so I spent some time thinking about what I expect from a lead and, using that list and other brilliant resources, the behaviours and attributes I hope to exhibit.

After that came tech lead (or maybe product manager?) of the GraphQL team at Twitter, with my name on some other internal projects in a leadership role. The teams are bigger; so is the scope for success or failure. This post was edited in 2018 to reflect that change.

This post is a sort of check-list: I return to it periodically to make sure that I have recently paid some attention to everything on the list.

I’m now a Principal Software Engineer at Bulb, working on our member-facing products and on security.

What do I want from a lead?

These are things I want or expect from someone I report to or consider a “lead” relative to me:

• Clarity and openness when I ask “why”
• Quantifiable short and long-term goals
• Ownership where necessary with clear responsibilities and expectations
• Team advocacy — selling us and sharing our work
• Documented processes with justification
• Space to become expert
• Humility and willingness to change their mind

How should I behave as a lead?

Given that list, what behaviours should I exhibit? I can’t ask more of people than I am able to do myself.

Within the team…

• Be as clear, explicit and transparent as possible, when appropriate
• Run high-quality, productive meetings with a clear structure — attendees should know what to expect
• Set an example for documenting project management process
• Trust the team to deliver when responsibility and ownership are given
• Be able to explain why about anything, able to say I don’t know, and ready to change my mind
• Advocate for open-source and external sharing
• Challenge the team to solve problems in the way they want
• Encourage quantifiable, short and long-term goals
• Help team-mates with career advancement and growth
• Prioritise unblocking others where I can
• Work hard to prevent interruptions to the team’s flow

Outside of the team…

• Actively communicate with other teams about blockers
• Sell and share the team and their work
• Actively monitor for external changes that may affect the team

And, at all times, optimise for happiness.

Tech Leads and Product Managers

The GraphQL team at Twitter was a product team and I did work that I perceived to be very similar to Product Management. This is what I found myself doing:

• Strategy and vision for the team
• Prioritised backlog for tactical decisions
• Quantifiable short and long-term goals
• Tracking progress for:
  • the team
  • outsiders
• Communication with:
  • stakeholders
  • customers
  • dependencies
• Team process
  • Lightweight, clear, no SPOFs
• Meeting facilitation

Of course, I was also on the hook for some code but where possible I tried not to be on the critical path, or in a position where my unavailability affects others.