The tech lead role means different things at different companies. At smaller organisations, it usually means doing both technical leadership and people work. Here’s what that actually looks like.

Josh Hornby

The tech lead role varies significantly across companies. At larger organizations, it typically focuses on technical direction without people management. At smaller companies, tech leads handle both technical leadership and people development. The hybrid role encompasses three core areas: setting technical direction and architecture standards, helping engineers grow through mentoring and code reviews, and ensuring delivery by unblocking teams and managing scope. Success means becoming less essential over time by building team capability rather than being a bottleneck. The role requires balancing competing demands between coding, mentoring, and delivery.

What is a Tech Lead?

Thanks, very nice and clean words

I’m an intern, but I really liked your thoughts and the way you explained the real role of a lead.

I really enjoyed this article and found it very insightful.

The project manager and tech lead are a different role that always presumed to be the same. This really gives clarity. Good story