You're the Tech Lead! Now What?

by Eryn O'Neil | at MinneBar 12

You’ve been programming for a while now. You know your way around the code, and you’re becoming a go-to for technical advice. And it looks like someone else noticed, because you’re the technical lead on your next project. Congratulations! But now what?

Being a lead is a lot more than just coding: The technical lead can be responsible for designing software architecture, writing requirements, interfacing with clients or management, or dividing work amongst the team– and those are just the parts of the job they tell you about ahead of time.

This talk is for anyone who is in charge of wrangling programmers. We’ll discuss how to motivate your team members without overstepping your bounds, how to oversee the technological vision of a project without losing sight of what’s happening on the ground, and some tactics to deal with challenges you might not anticipate, but will almost certainly encounter.

All levels

Eryn O'Neil

In her 13 years in the industry, Eryn O’Neil has been a developer, a tech lead, an independent consultant, a manager, and a director. Coming from the agency world, she has worked on everything from e-commerce and online promotions to crafting a proprietary framework and CMS. Her philosophy is to build software by placing humans first: both the people who will use it and the developers who will build it with you (and maintain it afterward).

Living in Minnesota, Eryn spends most of her free time teaching blues dancing, being a new mom, and wishing it weren’t snowing. You can follow her on Twitter at @eryno.