Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Great developer. Technical expert. Skilled at their craft and respected among their peers. To advance their career, they get the new title of Tech Lead.

Now, in addition to their job developing software, they get more responsibility. They get to make technical decisions for the team, decide how work is distributed and become involved in organizational decision making.

Over time, what happens? They start spending more time in meetings and less time coding — more time with managers, less time with their team.

They begin to realize, “Wow, I haven’t written any code in a couple weeks.” Eventually, they haven’t written any in months. One day, they wake up and realize, although their title is still Tech Lead, their job is no longer technical. They’re still expected to make technical decisions, but they no longer have the expertise that once differentiated them.

My Experience

That’s what happened to me. My transition from engineering to management was less a conscious decision to follow my passions and more a series of nudges down traditionally accepted notions of a “career path.”

By the time I became a full-time manager, I thought a lot about the ineffectiveness and frustration of the Tech Lead role and wondered if we could do something different. Could we break the cycle? When I ran the idea by my boss, I was surprised with the response:

“Sorry, that’s just the way it is in all lines of work. Once you are highly skilled in your profession, in order to keep growing, you have to lead others.”