how team leads and tech leads work and what is the difference
The more complex IT projects become, the more they require functional leaders — team leads and tech leads. These roles in the team combine administrative and technical responsibilities and open up new career prospects for employees.
How do specialists become team leads and tech leads? What is the difference between them? What skills do they need? We talked to PSB experts to find the answers.
First, it is important to clarify that team lead and tech lead are roles in the team, not positions. They can be performed by any team member who shows initiative and has good communication and management skills. Leads initially became popular in startups, but later their functionality was scaled to teams in large companies.
The essence of the lead's role is to combine technical knowledge and leadership qualities, and this is what makes it unique. The lead differs from a regular manager in that he or she is well versed in the tasks of his or her team. He or she does not manage from afar, but works together with colleagues and makes decisions.
The team leader is the heart of the team. He monitors compliance with the company's values and work principles, and how relationships are built between employees. He also leads Agile rituals: meetings, planning, retrospectives, reviews.
“For me, a team leader is a department head and manager, a person with well-developed management skills,” explains Artem Domashev, head of the testing automation technology development department at PSB. “He understands the team's pain points and finds a solution to them — in general, he provides everything needed for successful work.”
The role of team leads in companies is usually clearly regulated. But the role of a tech lead is often not formally formalized – an employee of the technical department simply takes on additional tasks that are interesting to him.
“My experience shows that team leads and tech leads at PSB are more informal leaders who can be assigned to supervise certain optional tasks,” notes Tatyana Sukhodolova, chief test analyst at PSB. “These are not administrative positions in our company, but both may have employees in the form of guys who help complete tasks.”
“The team leader's responsibilities should not be administrative,” agrees Sergey Kramachev, head of the technical analysis and implementation department at PSB. “He is a functional manager, but does not do educational work – he must be loved by the team.”
The Tech Lead performs a similar function, but his or her management input is more focused on specific technologies than on the overall well-being of the team or project. He or she has the greatest amount of knowledge and expertise in his or her field.
The tech lead is responsible for technologies and dialogue with developers, explains Sergey. He monitors compliance with work rules: code style, technology development vector, code review.”
“I see him as a team lead's assistant,” Artem believes. “The team lead doesn't necessarily have to delve deeply into technical aspects, because the tech lead will provide him with the necessary “squeeze” and help him make a decision.”
Based on the roles of team leads and tech leads in the team, employees in these positions need different skills.
Artem explains: “People with well-developed communication skills become team leaders. These are skills that are developed in childhood. If a person communicates well, if others listen to him, then sooner or later he will most likely become a team leader. Such employees can find a common language with all colleagues, not only with IT. But for a tech leader, communication skills are less important, but they still need to be at least at an average level – the main thing for him is to speak the same language with employees and the team leader.”
Communication skills are important for both roles—among equally talented employees, this is what sets leaders apart.
“Due to the specific nature of their work, such employees communicate a lot, resolve conflicts, so they are more visible,” notes Tatyana.
“Team leads and tech leads build communication within the team,” adds Sergey. “Often, this is not the developers' strongest point – they may not report on the completed task, or actively participate in meetings. Leads set an example and make sure that the entire team participates in feedback.”
Despite the fact that team leaders at PSB are not officially considered managers, a competent team leader approaches the work of his team from the position of a good manager.
Tatyana comments: “For team leaders, especially if they want to develop further in the direction of business and management, strategic thinking is very important. They must see the vector of development of the project and the company and be able to assess risks. It is important to promptly find solutions to problems that are suitable for the team. And it is especially valuable to choose tasks for employees that will be interesting to them, within their capabilities, and at the same time will ensure their professional growth.”
Artem believes that a tech lead is more immersed in the technical nuances of a project, so it is especially important for them to be able to work with the backlog and distribute tasks. Another interesting function of tech leads is monitoring innovations. They keep their finger on the pulse and monitor software updates, new libraries, languages, and frameworks.
In general, soft skills are much more important for team leaders: the ability to learn and adapt to changes, the ability to negotiate and reach agreements with colleagues, and organize teamwork.
According to Tatyana, knowledge of psychology and conflictology is an advantage for a team leader: “For those who want to make their work as a team leader easier, I would suggest reading books on conflictology by Tatyana Muzhitskaya and Andrey Koenig. They show popular situations that cause disagreements, and reveal ways to prevent them or obtain resources.”
One of the most important qualities of leads is knowledge of their team. Thus, a tech lead will always help find a suitable employee.
“He understands the employees, knows their strengths and weaknesses, special skills,” Artem shares. “He technically decomposes the task and explains who can do which part, and gives optimal deadlines.”
Team leads can also focus on the well-being of their team – preventing burnout, controlling toxic behavior, monitoring motivation levels.
All experts noted that they prefer to recruit leads from within the department, but there is not always a suitable candidate. Sometimes employees lack communication skills, or they are not ready for increased responsibility – some burn out after a few months in the role of team lead.
The team members who show initiative and ambition in their work become leaders.
Sergey says: “Employees cannot become leads if they do not start influencing their colleagues – training newcomers, spreading interesting ideas or approaches within the team. That is why I like to hire people who have experience in management positions for my department. They later become excellent team leaders.”
If you are selecting candidates for the company and leadership qualities are important to you, pay attention to the configured processes, onboarding and mentoring, interviews and presentations at conferences. The level of soft skills is clearly visible from everyday work situations, but it is better to clarify a person's desire to become a team lead or tech lead directly during a one-on-one conversation.
“It happens that an employee has excellent skills and experience to become a team leader, but he himself does not want it. And this opinion must also be respected and be prepared for it,” notes Tatyana.
To become a tech lead, you first need to develop expert technical skills. They usually choose highly specific tasks with complex logic. What scares many employees, for tech leads, on the contrary, is the most interesting. However, with an equal level of skills, if communication with the team is assumed, preference is given to those employees who communicate better.
An employee's development path is determined more by personal inclinations than by career ambitions.
Artem explains: “Teamleaders are those who are tired of programming and working with their hands. A tech lead achieves a high level in their area of expertise, but does not want to leave it. Top technical specialists earn no less than managers, so it is not about salary. The main question is what the person is interested in doing.”
Both roles provide opportunities for career development. According to Tatyana, a high level of expertise allows individual tech leads to take up the position of technical director in the future. They can also grow horizontally and become consultants, mentors or private tutors for employees.
Team leads have skills that can be applied in a wide range of leadership and management positions. They can become CEOs, CPOs, DevRels, heads of various departments. For some, experience as a team lead can be the first step towards starting their own business.
“Over time, team leaders' level of responsibility and the globality of their decisions increases, and they completely abandon their technical role and become full-fledged managers,” says Artem. “A team leader must in any case earn the respect of colleagues – either through actions or expertise. Since expertise becomes secondary for team leaders, everything must be proven through actions and soft skills.”
On the other hand, for many, the role of team leader is a comfortable career step, from which they do not want to move on to high-ranking management.
Tatyana noted: “In my experience, about 60% of team leaders either stay in their teams and expand their competencies through unusual cases, or move to a similar position in another team/company, or change their profile, but do not strive to become directly at the helm of the company, and this is normal.”
“Team leaders rarely want to move to fully administrative positions. They want to continue developing in their technical field and do not always cope with the increased responsibility, workload and stress of leadership positions,” Sergey agrees. “Going fully administrative is like completely changing your profession. Some people want this and specifically strive for it, but such cases are rare.”
So, team leads are an extremely valuable resource for the project, so managers are not upset when they do not want to move to management positions. The team lead is an important link between the management and the teams. He understands the specifics of his department and at the same time has a perspective on the project as a whole. Managers can delegate some administrative duties to him and receive valuable feedback on the progress of tasks.
Regardless of your career path, being a lead is an interesting challenge that tests traditionally under-resourced skills among technical professionals. These roles are great for those who are motivated to do more than just routine tasks. They allow you to understand how a project and business work, learn how to communicate better with colleagues, and organize your own time and the work of large teams.
