How To Be An Effective Tech Lead

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Jocelin HoFormer CTO of Cooby, ex-Meta Tech Lead
How To Be An Effective Tech Lead poster
Total time: 53 minutes
Course Overview

Being a good tech lead is incredibly hard. While many tech leads don't do much more than ask "Is it done yet?" every week, good tech leads must add value to the engineers they're leading while getting an immense amount of work done themselves.

If you have earned the trust of your team and achieved the role of tech lead, you must take that responsibility incredibly seriously and strive to be a good tech lead. Because if you don't, people struggle.

This is what this course is here to help you with. After going through it, you will know:

  • 💡  The full definition of an effective tech lead

  • 💻  What technological skills tech leads must possess

  • 🙌  How tech leads demonstrate true leadership

  • ✅  Practical tips to start acting as a tech lead

As a tech lead, you don't have the formal authority that a manager does. Despite this, you need to exercise an equivalent amount of influence (often times more) on engineering decisions. In a nutshell, this course will empower you to be a true leader despite not being a boss.

Meet Jocelin Ho

Jocelin is a distinguished technology leader renowned for her profound commitment to product development, engineering, and leadership. As the co-founder and CTO of Cooby, a startup supported by Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India) and Pear VC, she played a pivotal role in building both the product and engineering teams from the ground up, cultivating a culture centered on innovation and growth. Cooby's primary mission is to improve communication for sales teams using WhatsApp, which in turn enhances client relationships and business outcomes.

Prior to her entrepreneurial venture, Jocelin honed her technical skills at Facebook and Instagram. At Facebook, she made significant contributions as a Senior Backend/iOS Engineer, particularly on the Facebook Composer product. She later progressed to a Tech Lead role at Instagram, where she led the development of Instagram Story Ads and was also the tech lead of Taro cofounder Alex Chiou!

Jocelin's interests extend beyond traditional technology boundaries, with a particular fascination for generative AI and its potential to revolutionize various industries. She is passionately committed to developing cutting-edge technological products, leading technical teams, and creating solutions that profoundly impact people's lives.

Jocelin holds a Master's degree from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science from National Taiwan University, qualifications that underscore her extensive expertise and leadership in the tech industry.

Connect with Jocelin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocelinho/


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Lead ScientistStartups

This is also useful for thinking about how to be an effective scientific lead and thinking about the systems of working with scientists and engineers.

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Senior Software EngineerOther

The advice is simple but not easy; A+ content!

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Senior Software Engineer [G4]Grab

It was amazing to learn from Jocelin's experience.

She was extremely detailed in her explanations and helped me list the exact set of things I should be doing to be able to lead a team effectively.

I would be revisiting my notes on her course for sure couple of times, as I begin my journey as a Tech Lead in a couple of days in my job switch.

Really grateful to Jocelin and team Taro for bringing the valuable information to us, especially when I needed it the most! :)

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Mid-Level Software Engineer [SDE 2]Amazon

It is explained excellently and in simple terms. Loved the course.

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Mid-Level Software Engineer [SDE 2]Amazon

I've been doing a lot of the things mentioned in this course and also learned a few things. It's good to hear things twice sometimes as a refresher.

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AssociateUnemployed
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StudentStudent
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Staff Software EngineerLinkedIn
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Senior Software Engineerpowercloud
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Senior Software EngineerZeta Global
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Senior Staff Applied ScientistUdemy
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Senior Software EngineerSeries C startup
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Senior Software Engineer [E5]DoorDash
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Devops EngineerI work for a startup Startup
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Senior Software EngineerMeta

Kind of short, but to the point. More examples it would have helped.

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Senior Software EngineerHubspot
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Staff Software Engineer [E6]Meta