No longer a programmer, but not yet a manager

One of the worst nightmares of a novice team lead is that he will stop writing code, as a result of which he will forget how to program. But this is not the only fear team leads have. There can be many different pitfalls on the path from development to management.

This is not a post from a successful manager who started with programming. I myself have gone through several stages of the crisis of a novice team leader, and some things still bother me. So in this article I will talk about my experience and the problems that I myself have encountered.

1. Where do team leads come from?

A team leader can be hired from outside, or they can grow within the company. Some teams even make it a matter of principle that the team leader who is best suited for this role becomes the team leader. And yet the most common case is when a team lead is brought up in a company from a developer.

Imagine that you work as a developer for a company. You always work well, estimate your tasks correctly, and complete them on time. Everyone loves you, they say how responsible you are and generally great. Such talent should not be wasted. And your boss gets the idea that you should definitely become a team lead. They give you several interns and away you go.

Nobody took away your old responsibilities. You still program, but at the same time you also do code reviews, decompose and distribute tasks, and solve interns’ problems in every possible way. The first stage of your crisis is lack of time, and the last stage is burnout.

But why immediately burnout? You don’t give yourself the idea for the first time that you can program less, and operational activities are also work that takes time. As a result, you do the same amount of work as before. But additionally, keep an eye on other people and be responsible for their progress.

Manage programmers ≠ program

I once heard a very cool phrase: “managing programmers is not the same as programming.” These are generally different things and development in one direction does not strengthen you in the other.

From this we understand that skill transfer is minimal. And the only thing that helps you in managerial positions is the ability to speak the same language as the developers.

Then the reason for burnout in the case described above becomes more clear. You simply worked 2 jobs at the same time, and in different positions.

Resource Allocation

The solution to this problem consists of several steps. The first step is to realize that the team lead is a separate position, and temporary resources need to be allocated for it. The second step is to make it clear to everyone around you, and especially to yourself, that you will program less if you are given new responsibilities.

2. Rollback, comeback and a new round of crisis

Let’s return to our case. You decide that managing a team is a bad idea. It’s better, like in the good old days, to do tasks calmly, learn all sorts of new things from your professional field and be great. As a result, you decide to change jobs and move to a developer position in another company.

But something is no longer the same. Pandora’s box is open. Working simply as a developer is already boring, and the mentor skills you receive gather dust without use. You again become a Team Lead in a new company, but more consciously.

You no longer make the previous mistake, and immediately distribute your time 50/50, where half the time you are engaged in development, and half the time in management responsibilities. At this point, your crisis takes on a new form: you are doing less and less development. At some point, you realize that you are only taking on some little thing that you have time to do between meetings during the sprint. You begin to look with envy at your colleagues who take on large complex tasks in development.

Compensation

This problem can be solved in different ways. One option is to compensate for the hard ones. You can do pet projects and constantly test new technologies there.

If you don’t want to solve the problem at the expense of your own free time, then you can organize your work in a special way. For example, take on higher-level tasks – design or architecture. You shouldn’t waste time on routine and on what you already know how to do, filling up the time between meetings with such noise.

3. Finding a job as a team leader

You accepted your role, realized it. You have come to terms with the fact that you develop less and do more operational activities. You even found a thrill in this – you began to develop in conflict resolution, facilitation, planning and other attributes of a manager. And most importantly, you learned to see the result of your non-coder work and get satisfaction from it.

You have decided to change the company and now you are immediately looking for the position of team lead. When you start looking for a job for a team leadership position, you discover one lag in hiring. Everywhere you will be checked as a senior developer first of all, and secondly your team leadership skills.

It turns out that you can simply be the best leader, you will have the coolest atmosphere in the team, and the team itself will be the most effective in the company. But you might not write code for a year, as a result of which you become the team lead of one company.

In order to change jobs, you will have to remember everything and prepare diligently for technical interviews, making up for lost time. For what? To just pass the interview and not write code again.

Forced development in two independent directions

There is a problem here that I still cannot solve. It turns out that you can never relax. To be a team lead, you need to support yourself in 2 areas:

1 direction – your company. You solve the unique problems of your company and grow within it. In general, this is the only opportunity for a manager to grow within one company. You resolve various conflicts, business problems, engage in hiring and other management. And all this will weakly transfer to your background and to a lesser extent increase your chances of getting a new job.

2nd direction – technical background. Development in this direction will improve your position in your current position to a lesser extent. But without hard drives you won’t be able to find a new place. If during an interview you say that you haven’t written code for a year, then for most companies this will be more of a red flag. At the same time, development in this direction will further increase your prospects if you leave your current job.

And the problem here is that you cannot completely relax and accept the fact that you are now a manager and don’t have to write code. Perhaps this story will go away when you become a manager of managers, but for an ordinary team lead it is a problem and a constant additional burden.

What’s the result?

We must admit that team leadership in any form is a completely different profession. You can develop in it and learn to enjoy the results you achieve with the help of your team. But there are lags in hiring that are still difficult to influence. Team leads are still often required to have fairly high development skills. And there’s nothing you can do about it; you have to sit on two chairs until you become a manager of managers.

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