personal experience
From Mid Engineer to Tech Lead, A Path from My Personal Experience to Success and Growth
January 25, 2025
In this post, I’ll share my experience on how I became a Tech Lead. Working in this role for almost two years made me think: “Is there any specific reason why I was chosen over others?”
I once asked my manager, and he explained the reasons why I was chosen. So, these are some of the key points:
Most engineers think they’re hired to write code based on the requirements and get paid. While that’s partially true, just remember they hired you because they need you to help them generate more revenue.
This point needs to be emphasized because people with this mindset can provide the right ideas and feedback to the team, focusing on business and team impact.
It’s hard to get promoted unless you bring more value to the team. Always be present and willing to do things that others avoid. By doing so, you show your managers that you’re above their expectations and ready to be promoted to the next level.
Always show that you care about the product you’re working on. You can do this by delivering clean & high-quality code, giving valuable code review comments, giving constructive feedback, and being critical if some implementation could break the system in the future.
Being eager to learn new things might be obvious for programmers. But believe me, not everyone is willing to do so unless their manager tells them so. Some people tend to wait for their manager to buy them an expensive courses/workshops.
Personally, I’d say that learning new things and gaining new skills is a must and should become a habit for engineers. Technology is evolving faster than we think.
Learning doesn’t always mean reading thick books or watching a couple of hours of tutorials. We can learn just by reading notes & articles from Substack, posts from LinkedIn, and everything we can find on the Internet.
What’s important is how you turn your learning into real actions that can make a real impact on the team.
When someone asks for help from you, don’t just blame them for their lack of knowledge. Assist them, even if you don’t like it.
If we think about it, someone won’t ask for help if they don’t trust you could help them.
They come to you because they believe you have the competence to help them, and it’s a good signal. By helping others, we can also learn to solve a new problem we never faced before.
As a Tech Lead, one of the critical responsibilities is to mentor and guide junior developers. This task goes beyond just overseeing their work. It involves actively helping them grow and develop their skills. By investing time and effort into mentoring and guiding junior developers, you contribute to building a strong, skilled, and cohesive team. This not only benefits the individuals but also enhances the overall productivity and success of the organization.
Building strong relationships within your team and across the organization is crucial. Collaborate with other departments, understand their needs, and work towards common objectives. Strong relationships help in gaining support for your initiatives and creating a positive work environment.
In the context of learning and personal development, “consuming the right garbage” means being selective about the information you intake.
By consuming the right kind of content, you can ensure that your learning is effective and contributes positively to your growth as a developer.
The thing you can do is by subscribing good newsletter at Substack.
In summary, becoming a Tech Lead requires more than just technical skills.
🏆 Focusing on business impact
🤺 Taking on challenging tasks
💼 Showing product ownership
📚 Continuous learning
🤝 Helping others
🗣️ Mentoring junior developers
🫂 Building strong relationships
📈 Staying updated with industry trends
By concentrating on these areas, I hope it could help you to get a promotion to the next level.
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