Is Tech Lead the worst, or best job for you after watching this episode? Do you agree leadership is important for tech leads? Let me know your thoughts! ►► Know your options! Access my FREE data hub for the top 25 software industry roles, TechRolepedia → jaymeedwards.com/access-techrolepedia/ Chapter Markers: 1:20 1 TECH LEAD MYTHS 1:29 1.1 Smartest Team Member 2:11 1.2 Writes The Best Code 2:59 1.3 Chooses Key Technologies 3:45 1.4 Most Highly Compensated 4:12 1.5 Motivates Through High Standards 5:19 2 WHAT SHOULD A TECH LEAD DO? 5:22 2.1 Improve Team Effectiveness 6:35 2.2 Defend Team Members 7:52 2.3 Congratulate Team Publicly 9:00 2.4 Getting Team Consensus 10:19 2.5 Help When Things Get Hard 12:57 3 HOW BAD TECH LEADS GET PROMOTED? 13:28 3.1 Strong Individual Contributor 14:13 3.2 Company Promotes Out Of Fear 15:01 3.3 Management Misunderstands Role 15:25 3.4 No Desire To Lead 16:15 4 BECOMING A TECH LEAD 16:34 4.1 Practice Defending Your Team 18:19 4.2 Practice Congratulating Team 19:30 4.3 Read Books on Leadership 20:46 4.4 Work Closely With Others 21:52 4.5 Learn More About the Business 23:28 Episode Groove

I definitely feel for the tech leads I've worked for. They get put under a lot of pressure.

I wasn't really promoted to tech lead, but the role kind of just became mine. There weren't any official tech leads when I started. I was put into the tech lead role because I was a great individual contributor and very knowledgeable about tech and the systems we work on. I tried being the tech lead you described for a while, I think I got decent at it. But when enough people leave the company and you're constantly flooded with new hires, and you need to start building the relationships and teaching all over again, it gets exhausting. After your video, I will definitely try to be better again. Thanks

I think the best way to sabotage a tech lead is to set or imply the expectation that he should be the top performer on the team. This means that his #1 priority remains development and not leadership, but additionally it actually disincentives him from being a good leader, since any success of his team members actually threatens his own position.

Tech lead here - I like to think Im an above-average tech lead and I can 100% without a doubt attribute my success to my team. I try to stay out of my own way and really rely on the wisdom and experience of my devs. I am definitely NOT the best Dev in the organization and I’ve always understood that I don’t have to be. My job is to lead and empower my team, and that doesn’t require me to be some all-knowing deity. Overall I love my job because I love people and truly find joy in taking care of my team. I’d go to war to defend these guys.

I used to work under a tech lead who was technically very competent, but unapproachable because everyone was intimidated by him. Never was given any feedback about the late night or weekend hours that I put in to get the work done, which was a little bit demoralising. I've always thought raising team morale is extremely important for people leadership positions... I remember as a senior dev praising my colleagues, doing pair programming with them, teaching them things I've learned, and never making them feel stupid.. while the tech lead was just coding or in a meeting...

All I wanted to do was to be given a task and be left alone to work on it. Unfortunately, my company made it feel as though by not being a lead I’m somehow failing… now I’m a lead, I’m semi-miserable and the happiest moments I have are the ones when I get to do some coding myself.

I have seen tech leads often have the same wish to go back being individual contributors. They were either pushed to the role without consent or simply accepted the role to survive competition.

he's back 🎉 and brought a really relevant topic. I think a lot of smaller companies don't even have official tech lead roles and many devs just sort of end up naturally becoming the de-facto tech lead. How to deal with that kind of situation would also be an interesting topic, especially when management doesn't really recognize or acknowledge when a dev has slipped into that role. That can be a dangerous mix.

I think of the Tech Lead position as kind of like the coach of a sports team. Chances are, that person wasnt the best player of their sport, but they were good enough to know what the best players go through and what they need. Then you go about trying to put every team member in their best position to succeed, and that means something different for every individual. So at that point you are leading people doing software development, you are not actually leading the software development. Like you said, the job is about helping everyone get better.

When your podcast episode came up, I slammed the play button the first chance I got. Publish at whatever schedule you want: I'm listening each time you hit the feed. Thanks for the insight, as always.

The healthy software development comeback is exactly what I needed right now. I appreciate the content deeply. Thank you!!

YOURE BACK! i've waited very patiently for a new video. haven't watched yet, very excited to watch :D glad youre back.

Thank you for posting another video! I'm always learning something, and reminded of best practices when I watch your videos. Keep'm coming.

I had the video in the background and didn't notice you were also playing the guitar! Nice content.

I have seen individual contributors often pushed to tech leads to save money. The promotions and salary increments are often not aligned immediately and people have to wait for an entire year or even two for their compensation revisions.

Great video! I've seen many good developers become bad tech leads or managers which can be explained by the Peter principle.

glad to see you uploading content again!

I just want to say that I love your videos. They strike the perfect balance between outlining principles and giving vivid examples that are relatable. Your direct experience in the field and your reflection upon your experiences are super valuable. Keep it coming!

I've been in the business for a long long time, and a few years ago I got promoted to senior engineer, more bc my EM was pushing for it really hard to her leadership, and she had to kind of fight to convince them. We mostly had "ephemeral tech leads" at the time. Project-based and typically picked from Staff or Principal level engineers. I never really understood what they were doing, well "they facilitate technical discussions, arbitrate forks in the tech roadmap tech, moving things forward". I shortly after got an offer from a startup, and was assigned a role all the way to Staff Engineer & Tech Lead. Staff level because I had vastly the most experience. Didn't ask much about what their expectations were on the TL bits - "same as at that other big Swedish music streaming place, I reckon". Big mistake - always agree on expectations! The startup has been low on staff, and I've had to do a lot of hands-down coding (that's what I had been doing all along before - it's what I know, basically). And I've been dreading work more and more, as I don't feel I fit in anywhere, and in some sense I feel lika a failure with low impact on the company success. Not a good place. Some of your suggestions I feel are actually passions of mine. Kind of eng/mgmt glue, working for engineers to get time to hack, work in pairs, facilitate agreements and stuff. Will look to try and incorporate this more in my work. Really love this video, it has helped to clear and un-taint my idea of TL as a position. Now I just need to learn to communicate. And read some leadership book. Heartfelt thanks for great content (and reading this!), looking forward to the next one! Cheers

This is really more like a progression of responsibility. You begin as a junior having lots of overview and little trust. As a intermediate you are given responsibility for sections of implementation. As a senior you begin to take responsibility for mentoring, system design, and a broader set of skills. Team lead is a kind of specialist area where you look after development methods, standards, and often the person who manages the sprint/schedule. The detail varies, but it is always about increasing sets of responsibility.

I’ll start by saying I’m really glad your back (again) Jayme. I’ve been a Tech Lead for the last 3 years on a 20+ year career in mostly game dev. To me, it really was the end goal, and I had a lot of work to do on my soft skills to get there I relate to everything you were saying, to me, this job really is about mentoring other devs and be their advocate above anything else. There’s a big part missing from this video tho, it’s how tricky the relationship with the lead dev is, you have to work as a duo with competing roadmap, and features will always win unless you’re able to articulate and sell your technical roadmap

Only when you rock a guitar like that you are an undisputed tech lead

The worst thing a company can do is promote someone to tech lead because they fear losing them or the knowledge they have. Its probably the most toxic situation for both sides in the long run. But, time and time again I have seen it in industry.

Thank you for this video! You give me more confidence that a tech lead role is something I could actually do and be good at, rather than it being overwhelming.

Can't believe you're back 😭😭😭 missed you so much

I was an IC elevated into a Tech Lead position over 10 years ago. Fortunately I naturally fell into the right traits you listed here…and that’s great but it was a company that had all the bad traits you mentioned. It was the most gratifying but difficult professional experience I’ve ever had. I appreciate you putting so eloquently my feelings and experience. We need better leadership in tech and this video helps. Thank you!

I've been a tech lead for about a year and a half at this point. It's reassuring to hear the things you say because I kind of accidentally fell into some of the patterns you describe. Definitely feels like I'm still getting used to the position and being better at it though. Appreciate the video!

Fantastic advice, appreciate the flavors shared.

Thanks for the video, really helpful and useful tips I'll need to incorporate into my daily tasks

I just checked out your website, it has an amazing amount of information - _thank you_ 😀

Yay, more videos like this. Awesome!

Awesome video thanks! That was exactly what i needed being in a transition phase myself. The thing i struggle most is keeping it all together and keep people motivated when times are hard and customer keeps trying to feature creep all the time. Can you recommend 1-2 books on leadership?

Hi Jayme, I completely agree with all the points you made in this video. The Peter Principle shows us how the wrong people can get elecated into a tech lead role, it also has the habit of of pushing good tech leads into more senior roles. This not only denys teams the value good tech leads deliver, it can also result in loosing these people by pushing them into roles they hate.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, experience and pieces of advice in this area. Much appreciated ❤❤❤ As a person who is considering the position I really picked up some hints and nuances to pay attention to on my own way 😊😊😊

Wow! Thanks a lot for this video. I was just promoted to Software Lead a couple months ago to a growing team after entering Software Engineering for two years. I understood that it meant more management and less coding but I felt an immense amount of pressure feeling like I should be the best technical individual on the team. This video provided a lot of relief, reassurance and direction to help me understand and grow in this role. Still not sure if I want to remain on this course long term or to just be a technical contributor but this insight is priceless. I appreciate all your videos!! Thanks again.

It’s good to see you back!

I've been a software developer for nearly 25 years, working my way up from junior to senior and more recently have become a tech lead. Your advice and tips are on point. Defending your team, highlighting their good work, making decisions by democracy, spending time with them etc are all the necessary skills that make a great leader. The soft skills are probably more important in a leadership role than the technical ones.

I stepped into a "Chapter Lead" engineering role this week - this video is super helpful to remind myself of what is and what is not important! Thanks!

I'm very happy to have found your channel. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Just stumbled upon your channel recently, and I've been hooked ever since! Your content is amazing, thank you for sharing!

Thank you sir! Really doing us a favor!

Fantastic advice. Great format for the discussion as well. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks for making this content. Really appreciate and enjoy it

I was promoted a year ago, by popular vote. You want to be a good and effective team lead? - You need strong people skills. Communication and connection creates opportunities for improvement. Never stop being human, try to approach decisions around your team's very real lives. People write the code ❤

So good to see you back

Have been one for several years, most of the time you don't even get to pick the technology as you would expect in the job title because in a big corporation they would have architects that don't code and impose a lot of red tape over the project, so tech lead in name only you don't get to call the shots because there is always someone higher than you who will. Additionally, most of the time you are now mentoring your team in good practices, domain knowledge, technical knowledge, tools of the trade to avoid burnout and not overcommitting, and then butting heads with other roles like the product owners, management, operations, so the time spent on IC has decreased. This video is really spot on though.

Great video, thanks, you look like have a interesting solid and humble experience in coding. I have been there and I went back to architect/specialist cause I don't like to manage people or a lot of meetings :) A terrible mistake you can make as Tech Lead is to expect that all the other developers should follow your path to work and deliver the same as you did as developer.

I have checked your channel regularly since you posted your last video. As a programmer and small entrepreneur your videos are valuable to me in many ways. Welcome back!

Love the ending music! Not to diminish the rest of the content, but it was my favourite part.

good to hear a critical analysis of what it takes to lead. to many "I am manager, I am boot" mentalities

You got my like when you started playing the guitar at around 5:20 lmao great video tho, a lot of insight and details that you don't usually consider or even comes across your mind, and veeery useful info. Cheers!

Thank you for a great video! My perception has always been that tech leads are the best developers/dev ops etc. In my experience it's the people who are really good developers that get promoted to be tech leads (not all of them suit the role, as you've explained). I've never seen anyone who is not a strong dev get promoted to a job like that.

This is really good shit. Thanks @HealthyDev!

As a new TL I appreciate this video a lot. It helps me calibrate what im doing right and where the opportunities to improve are. Also nice playing lol

I am a tech lead / lead developer, and totally agree with what you’re saying. I am the first to throw myself in the line of fire to catch bullets for my team. Also, I know that all people make mistakes, and I try to implement systems to prevent them from reaching the client, internal QA or even my project manager (I’m working in an agency). As a flightsimmer, I am an absolute fan of checklists for everything that is even remotely critical, as well as the 4 eyes principle.

State of art video. Thanks.

Great video, thanks!

Hey Jayme, I've been following you for a while, just wanted to say thanks for all the positive videos to help out Devs/Engineers and level them up :)

Thanks for this video, you remind me of what I like about this role. However, this role really sucks if management proves to unresponsive or untrustworthy.

Tech lead is a management role. It should only be given to people who are suited to being good managers, and they should receive all of the support that a manager needs.

Great video as always

I’m a tech lead and I can confirm this is good content! Wish the CTO and managers understood or remembered these same lessons.

Oh man, it's so nice to hear someone saying this, I've been a Tech Lead for longer than I care to remember and I can relate to so much of what you're saying. I've always focused on bettering the people around me, I'm never the smartest dev, I aways focus on leveraging the strengths of my team, and building a strong team culture is always my number one goal. Once you get the culture where it needs to be you can almost sit back and watch the high performance go nuts. And when devs you've lead in past roles begin to follow you when you move on, that's the best part, that's when you know you're doing okay!

This is exactly how I expected FC leads to be at my job. Sadly, this is not the reality. Leads end up being the person with the highest level and they kinda scope larger ask to broad task and let the members of the teams pick up the task they want. I was so shocked because I came in as an entry level fresh out of Uni but I had another life as a senior leader in the military and I would ensure to drill into the heads of my young leaders this exact concept around leadership. Train them, coach them, and challenge them to work on their leadership skills and be the best leaders because good leaders foster good teams and good teams win battles. So going from the military to a large tech company I am so surprised how they handle leadership.

If a company provides roles and promotion paths for ICs instead of forcing them into management, it helps with this. If the only way up is to be tech lead or a manager then you get shoe horned into it. This sounds like a problem created by team structures. The tech lead being a different role from the engineering manager, separating some of those concerns helps also.

Wow. Drop everything; watch video. Putting out the fire can wait.

The Peter Principle is a thing in a lot of companies I feel. Thankfully my current company understand that leadership & engineering are two very different skills and don't always come hand in hand ; as such it offers two promotion paths which build into the strength of each individual and their aspiration/affinity for the business.

Tech Lead and Solution Architect is a blurred line too. Much of what you mention also applies to an architect’s role. But then most of the great Tech Leads I have met could take the Architecture role if they wanted to be even less hands-on. So that blurring is a good thing, in my view.

The way you're describing the role makes a whole lot of sense. And it absolutely shows that my manager has no idea about any of it.

This is my first day watching this channel, and I am already start loving it. really great tips and ideas here. thank you

Good advice. Perhaps no-one really knows what it's like until they actually try it, but this video makes a lot of things more clear. I know some persones that tried it and got back to being IC. Nice guitar tone BTW.

Really loved this video, there are lots of things really interesting.

Thx for the info, Big Bro.

I am Technical Lead at my company and most of what you say is true. I was a senior software engineer beforehand and I was promoted to Tech Lead last year. I had to do line management courses and do a lot of managerial work. I soon got fed up with that and told my boss I didn't want to do line manager work. Luckily he agreed and now I play more of a team lead with a technical consultant role for the rest of the business. I also get to do coding which is my main interest. I kept the pay rise though haha. I think it's important to do what you love at work and not chase the money or prestige. It doesn't always work out the way you expect

Make a lot of great points here. I think one of the root problems here is that at some point as a dev who is really pushing hard and keeping up to date with new tech, there isnt much increase in salary/compensation. I think the problem is that people think that managers must be given a higher salary than a expert dev, which I think is a bad mindset. Many expert devs have far more demanding jobs and more valuable skills than a manager does (highly sought after on market). There are quite a lot of people who can do middle manager as its an easier job than staying on top of lots of complicated and constantly evolving tech stacks. A good IT company will realize this and make sure to keep their devs well compensater and appreciated but many more are stuck in an old mindset where manager is ”king”. Im not saying that being a good manager is easy, but I do think that being an expert software dev in many fields is much more demanding and a much harder skill to get and also much more valuable on the job market then an average manager is.

Can't say enough amen to this. 😅 I hope every company will have this understanding.

@HealthyDev, I got this video in my You Tube recommendations today. This is a great video. I really like your presentation style, deep knowledge and your guitar playing skill. I am going to binge-watch all your videos over this holiday season. LOL. I am happy I found your channel. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Amazing video!

Yeah, I would say the leadership side is more important than the technical side. I strongly agree that the tech lead should be trying to make the individual team members become better at what they do. The thing that resonated with me most in this video, and is probably something I need to get better at, is defending the team members.

Great inputs. So, people who are natural achievers and who are brought up in strict households with high expectations and who attended schools that encouraged competition may not be cut out for the tech lead role. It takes conscious effort to not project to another person the internal and external expectations one person grew up with.

I've been leading for a while and wish I had bumped into this video before. Congrats, dude!

I agree with the principles in this video, and I see that they work in practice.

I was promoted to Tech Lead at the beginning of this year. I didn't want to do it. For most of this year I have been extremely stressed. I drafted my resignation, called my immediate manager out of courtesy to forewarn him. I was talked out of it, by him, the Delivery Director and the Head of Engineering. I'm glad I stuck at it. It's incredibly challenging, different in so many ways to being a developer. Yes I have felt and still do feel that I have to be the smartest guy in my team. I can't know everything but I have to be able to crack the most difficult problems. This is a great video. Really really great. Thanks.

Love it. You've got a lot of things I agree with here. However I can't help but think that the 'scope' of the tech lead isn't as grand as all you've mentioned, but rather these are good things to do in support of your Manager, your Project Manager, your Project Lead, etc. But perhaps this is one of those things that depends on the size of the company, and joining many roles under one undersized title might happen more often than not. I consider the Tech Lead role to be the "understander" and "arbitrator" of technical aspects of the project. Of course, insert stuff about communication, and a smattering of leadership here, both of which you covered really well. Most of your points I would assign to the Manager (developer manager) itself, supported by the lead's insights into best practices, perhaps a technical background behind why your team thinks this way, etc. To me, this is the last refuge of the excellent fully hands on coder - everything above that I call a manager. One of the key aspects between a manager and a tech lead is that a manager, in general (big companies have weird practices), can hire and fire people on their team, while a tech lead works with what he has. This makes all the difference in the world with how people respond to you and how far you can go in terms of fixing or helping people. Anyway, My 2c - new subscriber, and I hope to learn alot :).

Thanks for laying out the information in such a clear way, especially what kind of competences a lead really requires. I'm not a tech lead, but a team lead. Just wanted to share my story and findings as a lead because I feel like a lot of this video translates to anyone who leads developers towards development goals. I'm a developer who has been promoted to senior/lead for my team a few months back. I would say all-in-all I have about 4 years of full-time experience, so not a lot of experience. Development-wise I would call myself decent. I know my stuff, but I'm more of a generalist than a specialist in any topic. So to be honest I was a bit surprised when my manager told me during my performance review that they wanted to give me the promotion. When I asked what it is they think made me a good lead, they told me it's not necessarily what they think, but what the devs in my team thought about me. In my case my co-workers (devs/product owners) basically asked if I would want to become a lead. And now comes the kicker. I've never felt imposter-syndrome before, but now I do. Because initially I didn't really understand what it was that made people think that I was a good lead. I felt like I didn't have the technical knowledge to tell people how to build something, or that my contribution was necessarily bigger than my co-workers. But after a lot reading and actually just talking about it with my colleagues, these are some things I think I learned about being a lead over the last few months that I wanted to share. To anyone reading, please share your thoughts or anything you've learned yourselves. - Leading is not about your personal output. Better yet, leading is not about you at all. You're not adding to the output of the team, but instead you should focus on being a multiplier for your team. Meaning, by supporting your co-workers, you're able to increase the team's overall performance/output, even while decreasing your own personal output. Basically you're there to make sure things actually get done. - Leading is not about being the smartest or most knowledgeable person in the team. Better yet, the chances are that there is someone in the team (or company, or maybe even external) who knows more about it than you do. I believe a big part of leading is making sure the right person is doing the right type of work. That doesn't mean that people's shouldn't be allowed to learn. But even then, as a lead you should still provide support for that person, even if you can't personally give it to them. - You should always be the most approachable person in the team. No matter the issue, people should be able to come to you for help. And even if you can't help them yourself directly, make sure you connect the people who can help each other. Because even if some developers are introverted or have difficulty socializing, it's up to you to make them feel comfortable approaching you. - When making technical decisions, a big part of it involving the team in the decision. So I spend quite a bit of time in structuring my own findings in a way, so that I can clearly communicate the though process or the reasons for making certain technical decisions. Of course, everything I suggest is up for discussion, and when needed I'll also ask people to figure out some technically detailed parts for me. That way they're part of the technical preparation, and when possible, that same person will also be knowledgeable about the feature they're about to implement. It's not about "doing as I say" but it should be about "making a decision as a team". Sometimes it requires quite a bit of effort to have people make decisions, so you'll have to really listen to them and guide them towards what they think should be done. Of course you can challenge the technical input you get, but you should never punch down on people, even if the idea is actually really stupid.

A company is a meritocracy ? I almost spit out my coffee. I think the term you are looking for is mediocracy.

This is actually really good advice for anyone who finds themselves leading a team, not just for tech leads.

I've been working for a huge telco for a little bit over a year and my original position was just as Sr. Developer. Today I'm also a Data Engineer Sr. and the Tech Lead for my "working cell". It helps that I've managed groups of all sizes before and I'm not a kid anymore, but it is a struggle. What I don't do is make technical decisions by mylsef, or at least I wait until I've had input from everyone else so I'm sure I did't leave any good idea I didn't have out. Oh, btw... I'm still making developer money -.-

I just found your channel. You're amazing.

25 yoe as well. My roles tend to be some kind of staff position like tech lead or architect. I am not the best programmer, but better at working with end users and management. At my age the best thing I can be doing is clearing out the blockers affecting the rest of the team so they can kick butt.

Thanks for your insight

Great timing, I've been thinking about pursuing this path recently. My problem though is that I've never considered myself to be "leadership material", nor the best or even good, and in summary haven't had much confidence. I've been working on this and now am starting to feel like maybe someday I can do it. What advice would you give to build up from a background of low perceived worth vs the direction you've described, where you perceive yourself as high worth before stepping into the role?

Even though I was a decent tech lead... always feel I made a mistake pushing to be promoted as one. As I got hit with the expectation to be a tech master for a full stack, build & design the stack, explore spikes, teach developers, defend people, and fight for improvements. Made for a lot of stress and extremely long hours. Found myself acting more as a manager then the actual manager tech-leads. Though was proud before I quit that I had trained up a few other tech leads and got good at delegating research to devs. This way they could learn and be more involved in the process. Resulted in some very solid devs that loved what they did.

Now here's a well rounded guy that would make a great CTO, CEO, Director etc. hell even Chairman. Somebody poach him! BUT please just make sure he continues YouTubing for us!

After something like 25 years of software development in different contexts I am now acting as the Tech Lead for the first time in my life. I love coding. Can't stop, doing it, creating things out of thin air basically :) But honestly, I really like the fundamental principles of acting as a Tech Lead, connecting different actors in a software dev project by using knowledge, experience and communication. I absolutely dig the human aspect of this job as I am simply dealing with human actors that have their own goals, fears, images of them self and their surroundings. This goes for all hierarchy levels. There is a lot of politics hidden under the table. But mastering those is a challenge that is a new level and I like it. I see my role not only as what you described but also as the one connecting management ideas and business goals to project managers and product owners - might be strange but it needs someone doing this job and I am more than happy doing it as this only benefits the whole project by bringing clear information and goals to the team. I don't want them to deal with unclear situations I have been in so many times. As a developer you want clear goals. You want to know, how much freedom you get while developing your ideas and your code and you want a certain amount of freedom as coding is an act of craftsmanship driven by strong creativity. Well, I am thrilled to see, how this progresses and where I will shine or fail. Either way, it could be, what I was looking for all the time - let's see, how it goes ;)

I love coding. I was promoted to "tech lead" and project manager within 2 years, then division manager in 5 more years. And worst yet, I was damn good at the jobs. But I miss coding. I miss being left alone with my coffee and music to just code. I know, first world problems. But my advice for newer programmers fresh out of college, aim big. Take risks. Do what you love. You can always settle on some safe career later when you have experiences.

not currently a techlead but been it in the past and I totally agree. The first time I became a lead I felt unsuited as I was definitely not the most experienced, but then I realised my most valuable contributions werent the code, it was making sure the team worked together and understood each other

Greate video! I agree with most things! Few additional things I think make a great Tech lead and would love to know what you think of them: 1. Be honest about mistakes they made in the past: It humanizes them and helps keeping the self-steem of their devs up high because the person they look up to also screwed up a couple times. 2. Be humble about pieces of sotware they wrote ages ago and stay open if someone in the team suggests refactoring it. 3. Be aware of their devs' career desires and try to adjust their tasks to faciitate their growth in that path.

I'm Tech Lead on a product company and I love it. Somehow I naturally followed most advices in video without even thinking on it, but when I seen it I like "yep, I always do that. And sometimes that. Totally that as well. and that too. Haha". I think Its just good work etics, but to be honest I also had lot of training for work ethics when I worked in big IT companies. I can only add that there is different approaches on outsource IT and on products. Working on outsource IT was more strict, required to be more productive but was more responsive, when product is more flexible but a bit lazy and chaotic. It's a trade-off I think. Product I like more for just life, but outsorcing is better for career and skill grow. I'm planing to rotate once in few years.