How to be an effective Tech Lead

Derek Parham

About Me

● Grew up in Boston

● Went to CMU

● Started at Google in 2005

● Started Google Apps for Businesses

● Grew to over 100 engineers on the Enterprise Apps team and over 30 million active users.

About this talk

● Culminated from many TLs over many years○ This talk even given in multiple countries

● Not talking about: ○ Coding, Design, Product

● We are talking about:○ Being an effective TL○ Process○ Team building

● Being a TL is a role, not a rank

Responsibilities of a TL

● You are the router

● Communicate up, down, and all around

● Build up your team

● Look for what's not being worked on

You are the router

● Sorry, you are not necessarily the coder anymore○ But don't stop coding all together, stay knowledgeable

and teach! ○ You should be doing lots of code reviews

● Answer lots questions○ Important: Always be available to answer questions

● When possible, have other people answer the questions

● For common questions, document the answers

Communicate up, down, and all around

● Communicate up to superiors○ Do the presentations and get to be known○ Pro-tip: Avoid live demos, or have ready backup

● Communicate down to your team○ Explain the thought and discussion behind decisions

● Communicate all around to other teams

● Building connections will allow your team to go faster○ Have lots of lunches with your team but also other leads

Group-aware Language

● Individualize success

● Group-ize failure

● We, us, our

"Billy's bug messed up the launch" vs "We hit a bug that messed up our launch"

● Refer to ideas by a label, not a name

Meetings

● Remember the good old days...

● Not your imagination, meetings kill eng productivity

Limit meetings for your team

● Consider the cost of each meeting○ # eng * length of meeting * 2

● Turn down meetings and defend your team

● Batch meetings next to each other, on one day

● Use email to communicate about meetings○ Before: send around agenda○ After: send around notes

● Target communications to the right groups

● No laptops

Design Reviews

Goals:

● Spread knowledge about projects to team members

● Let junior eng get mental time of senior eng

● Document decisions for the future

● Give everyone the chance to give feedback

● Spread best practices of a team

Design Reviews

Google Apps design review process:

Prep:● Design doc finished and sent out 3-7 days ahead of time● "Questions document" is also sent out which people add to● Do not answer questions in the Questions document

Actual Review:● Have a rotating Sr Eng mediator● All people who talk should have read the design doc● No laptops except to display or take notes.● Display the "Questions document" and add the

answer/decision to the document live.

During a review

● Voice of the TL

● Pauses

● Ask more questions than give answers

● All ideas are welcome, but focus

● Again: Refer to ideas by a label, not a name

Building up your team

● Build up more TLs as your team grows

● Teach your engineers

● Team success is more important than personal success

● Work smarter, not harder: replicate yourself

Build up more TLs

● Well defined responsibilities

● Teams of 3-5 are most effective for one TL

● Encourage and force leadership experience

● Let them make mistakes

● Delegation!

Delegation

● Make them the full owner, no halfsies

● Stop answering questions for new TLs, route them!○ But be extra available to answer their questions

● Delegate but verify

● Don't be afraid to make changes

● For yourself: Always have a #2

Teach your engineers

● TLs have the most context, share it

● Teach them how you think and act○ Pair programming○ "Is anyone using this anymore..."○ "Here is how I would do this..."

● Show how to fix bugs instead of doing it yourself

For eng to become TL

● Ask questions, lots of questions○ Makes TL feel smarter○ You're not the only one with question○ Spread knowledge

● Work with different teams and disciplines

● Take on responsibilities, become the go-to person○ Doesn't have to be eng related

● Deliver

Look for what's not being worked on

"Everyone else on your team has a list of things to do, but who is the one looking around for what's not being worked on?"

● Delegate everything.

● Yes, everything...even that.

● Empty plate is a good thing

● Look for problems big and small

...but wait, there's more!

First though, any questions?

Today's exercise

● Break into groups of 2-3

● Take turns each being the tech lead.

● Ask the tech lead what is on his/her plate this week

● Then for each thing, ask how they will get it off their plate○ Who will they delegate to?○ What needs to be done to hand off knowledge○ What kind of follow up would be necessary○ What will you do with this new empty plate

● Nobody to delegate to? No problem, imagine you just got one.

Thanks for coming!

Any more questions?