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Tech Lead

Complex projects require technical leadership, and this is the role of the Tech Lead. Our Tech leads are drawn from our Senior Data Engineers and Principal Engineers to provide this leadership.

What is a Tech Lead?

The Tech Lead role is not a point on the ladder, but it is a set of responsibilities that any engineer may assume once they reach a senior level.

Our Tech Leads continue to write code and build software, but they also represent the development team to management and clients, vet plans for feature delivery, and get involved in the technical project management of the software.

The characteristics of a good Tech Lead are not just technical skills, but also teamwork, good communication skills and leadership.

What does a Tech Lead do?

The Tech Lead takes a wide view of the work to keep the project moving, and so they tend to wear many hats. The role can be broken down roughly into three sub roles, each which the Tech Lead will have to fill in varying ways. How these sub roles are filled and carried out by the Tech Lead is largely project dependent.

System Architect and Business Analyst

In this role, the Tech Lead seeks to identify systems and features that are critical and must be built for the delivery of the project. This may require liaising with the client at a technical level. The goal is to provide structure for estimating and ordering the work.

This role requires:

  • A good sense of the architecture of the project system and software.
  • Experience and understanding of how to build and design complex systems and software.
  • An understanding of business requirements and be able to turn them into software.

Project Planner

With this role, the Tech Lead seeks to break down the work so the team can work quickly, productively, and in parallel where possible.

Data Engineer and Team Leader

Our Tech Leads are still Data Engineers. Along with writing code, they also:

  • Communicate issues and obstacles with the team.
  • Utilise the expertise within the team to best solve problems and progress work
  • Delegate within the team where appropriate.
  • Lead technical decisions and remove technical obstacles.

SFIA Level

The SFIA level of a Tech Lead is the same as their engineering position.