4 ms·
I am a manager, who also serves as a tech lead, for the record I'm at Microsoft. Ex-MSFTee and Google SDE here - At Microsoft my manager served both as a manag
by gramerc 11y ago
I am a manager, who also serves as a tech lead, for the record I'm at Microsoft.
Ex-MSFTee and Google SDE here - At Microsoft my manager served both as a manager in a traditional sense, as well as a tech lead. At Google, my manager and tech lead (TL) have always been distinct roles filled by different people. My manager, though an experienced dev himself, leaves all the various aspects of daily technical leadership to his TLs and focuses on just people and project management. From a line management perspective, both my TL and I report to the same manager.
My experience is that this organization allows managers to manageably have a lot more DRs than my managers at MSFT could. Another benefit is that the TL role is a natural fit for people who do want to step into a clear role that allows them to increase their impact and leadership as senior engineers but are not interested in traditional people/career management work.
- boomzilla 11y agoAre there multiple tech leads per one people manager? I can't imagine someone who can act as a tech lead for a team of 50 engineers and still manage to write code. I have a reservation with tech leads who stop writing code as in my experience they'll stagnate (the time frame is maybe 2,3 years). A manager manages people mostly by process: a lot of things they look at can be quantified as metrics. So it's alright to have 50 reports (one hour on each a week seems reasonable). A tech lead needs to be able to get to details while still need to have an overview of everything. And then there is the need to keep up with the industry and that means a few hours of paper reading at least every week.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago50 reports (one hour on each a week seems reasonable) What else is that manager expected to do?
- gramerc 11y agoAre there multiple tech leads per one people manager? Correct. My manager has 4 TLs reporting to him. My TL has a team of 7 not including himself, which is actually on the higher extreme. My previous TL had a team of 4 which is more typical. For career/HR-y management aspects I interact 1:1 with my manager for those, as does my TL. TLs will naturally offer career guidance/mentorship informally by virtue of technical seniority (where applicable) as well as feedback to managers and promo committees that will feed into conversations regarding the technical readiness for promotion for someone on their team. I have a reservation with tech leads who stop writing code as in my experience they'll stagnate (the time frame is maybe 2,3 years). TLs at Google stay quite technical (and mine certainly does) and write code as a routine matter of course.
- maxxxxx 11y agoHow is the pay for manager vs tech lead? In my company managers get paid much better and have more levels to move up to whereas a tech lead typically has maxed out his potential for promotions.