So you’re on a software team, and that team has a manager you answer to. Everything is nice and simple, but as the team grows and the product evolves, the limits of this model become readily apparent. That’s when many teams, maybe even yours, introduce a role of “technical lead”. People, however, are anything but simple. When there are no clear boundaries, you’re bound to run into issues with the human element.

In this talk we’ll share our experience as tech lead and engineering manager in our own group at WeWork, highlight some of the mistakes we’ve made on the way there, and share lessons and best practices learned to implement this model in practice.