Tech Lead Q&A and Videos

I work mostly with other senior engineers and the tech lead in my team. I discuss any technical stuff, how to implement my projects, what to do next, etc. with them. With my manager, I meet once every two weeks and update what I am doing.

I actually now wonder what's really the role of an engineering manager as tech leads seem to do most of the work in managing the team. Is it to help with people conflicts, hiring, and performance reviews? That doesn't seem like a lot of work.

I have weekly meetings with leadership, and they consistently ask more about our timelines and engineering work, which I understand we need to provide.

Having said that, what are some of the questions we engineers can ask leadership/product to hold them accountable for some of the requirements?

What are some of the customer-centric questions we could ask?

I am taking Lalit Kundu's course on TL Blueprint on Taro right now. Thanks for creating it. :)

I had a question since I joined as a "first time tech lead" in my company. Before this, my official title was Senior Software Engineer.

It's been a month for me in my new company and I had the chance to contribute to multiple threads. But could not directly have as major code contributions as I previously did. Wanted to understand if this is normal as a tech lead. In fact, most of my time goes reviewing designs and code rather than coding myself.

Actively trying to seek out / create such opportunities now for myself, like a deployment freeze manager I am planning to create so that deployments can get blocked or go through an additional layer of approval during freeze.

But there are several other burning things like lack of proper observability etc. which may not directly need me to code.

Thus, would be helpful to get any related advice on how I should approach this. Below is a short pie chart I created for things I worked on in my first month of joining. Also, worried a bit since we have review cycles approaching. Planning to discuss this with my manager as well.

Link to the pie chart [relevant to this question] :

Edit:

There is an item that is high priority, needs code to be written which I am planning to pick up this week, so should be sorted atleast wrt some contribution in terms of code.

But, still would like to understand how important it is for tech leads and is it okay for Tech Leads to be able to code lesser than what I did as a Senior Software Engineer.

I am an E4 Machine Learning Engineer working with a (traditional) Software Engineering Tech Lead who lacks a strong understanding of Machine Learning. This gap makes it challenging for him to communicate clearly the needed technical requirements, set a clear direction for my projects, and maintain consistent priorities, which often shift unexpectedly.

As a result, I frequently feel unclear about my deliverables for this half-year and worry that this lack of clarity might negatively impact my performance review.

Do you have any advice or suggestions on how I can navigate this situation?

I went through and kudos to her for doing a great job at articulating everything so well.

But I was wondering at the same time if there are any differences in leading a tech team at a startup (100 engineers company) vs a FAANG company?

I've been talking with different founders about startups and exploring different getting started with Entrepreneurship And Tech Startups? I also watched several of the . and it got me thinking about when the right time might be to start my own venture. Since I have high tolerance for risk, Could you provide some insights into what are strategies of finding co-founders?

Moreover, what are your thoughts on working on side projects or trial work with potential co-founders before fully committing to a startup? How effective is this approach for building strong, collaborative teams and testing ideas?

Additionally, I remember Alex and Rahul did explore incubators and accelerators as part of this process from one of the Taro Videos. These programs often facilitate co-founder matchmaking and provide a supportive environment. I also got accepted to On-Deck Program for their next cohort for 1 intensive week and thinking about applying to YC in the future with future co-founders. How beneficial are these resources for someone in the early stages of startup planning?

How beneficial are these resources, and which ones would you recommend prioritizing in the early stages of startup planning?