Ask HN: For those who are tech leads what are your responsibilities?

I've been an Engineering Manager at a financial institution focusing on IT infrastructure automation for the past twelve months after coming from an Architect/Tech Lead type role in a much smaller organisation. I have learned a lot in this transition so far.

I love to design systems and write software, but if that's what I'm doing in this role, I'm not adding value where it's needed. The closest I get to code these days is helping with code reviews or supporting the team in making design decisions.

Most of my time is spent in meetings and this was the most confronting part of the transition. The organisation I work for is complex, with many teams responsible for different pieces of infrastructure and systems. My role here is to help set the agenda for what we're delivering and engaging with other teams/stakeholders to make sure we derive quality requirements that translate into epics and stories that my project managers can see through to delivery.

I am privileged to work with a high performing team and to maintain that, I have to support them by removing blockers and ensuring they get the right support. A lot of this goes beyond engineering work - it's about making time for one-on-ones, mentoring and essentially marketing their work to my leadership to ensure they're recognised.

Success in this role for me is when individuals on my team are receiving consistently good feedback on the value they bring to the organisation. Value meaning building infrastructure and tooling that meets requirements, is of good quality (and being clear on what that means) and thinks of the "customer".

I’ve been an Engineering Manager, a VP of Platform, and Head of Engineering at a startup I’ve confounded. Here’s my input:

Individual contribution is my last priority. Generally, if I try to continue in my previous role as a software engineer than I become a bottleneck for everyone on my team. I need to focus on quality of issues/stories in Jira, code reviews, deciding on library or package usage, discussing code styles, and meeting with other managers to broadcast what the team is doing and our general status. Every time I let myself focus on doing development work instead of smoothing out the process for the rest of the team I’m actively harming my team and our process.

I usually look at writing software as a luxury at this point (though it varies at a startup where I’ve got to pull a lot more weight come hell or high water). If I do it, I aim to take on bugs or upgrade packages. Maybe I try to grab low hanging performance improvements. But whatever I do I’m grabbing things that are on the periphery so I’m not holding anyone back who may have a dependency on the work I might pick up.