Understanding the Roles: Team Lead vs Tech Lead in Software Development

Originally posted on LinkedIn - Understanding the Roles: Team Lead vs Tech Lead in Software Development

When hiring for Team Leads, a common question from recruiters and candidates is, “What’s the difference between a Team Lead and a Tech Lead?” It’s a good question and one that warrants explanation, especially as, in many companies ‘Tech Lead’ tends to be one of those titles that is conflated.

In the Push Team, within Core Systems at Bet365, we’ve differentiated and divided the key responsibilities between these two roles while other teams, other departments and other companies often combine them. For us, we recognise them as two distinct roles with overlapping and supportive responsibilities and aims, with the key distinction lying in their primary focus.

Tech Lead

A Tech Lead, as you might expect, is primarily focused on leading the technology within the team. They are very technically experienced, having worked across lots of systems and projects, and have become the oracles for systems and technologies. The primary responsibility is to guide the team in technical matters, helping the team to achieve successful delivery of quality solutions. Typically, this will remain a hands-on role.

• Technical Expertise – Has a deep understanding of the software development lifecycle, principles and the technologies used. They are responsible for encouraging best practices, providing support and guidance, as well as understanding new technologies and trends.
• Architecture – Responsible for the overall design and definition of the system architecture, involved in key technical decisions and evaluating trade-offs, considering performance, scalability and working towards a solution that provides the team with a system that is simple and effective.
• Quality Assurance – As a technical lead, you’re responsible for the overall quality of a system or service, and so there’s often a need to set and enforce quality standards. This means talking to the team about best practices and being involved in Code Reviews to promote maintainable, scalable code, and adhere to the best practices. Quality is also achieved through testing practices and code quality checks such as linting or complexity, often these can be written as code and automated.
• Collaboration – As a tech lead, you’re bridging the gap between the business and the technology, helping to translate business requirements to the team and vice versa, communicate technical challenges and limitations to the business.

Where the confusion lies, is often Tech Leads also take on Team Lead responsibilities, however for us in a team where technology is central to what we do, these responsibilities are incredibly time consuming and would leave little time to be successful at both, so for us, it makes sense to split those roles into two. This is where the Team Lead role comes in.

Team Lead

The responsibilities of a Team Lead are centred more around the team dynamic, the people, encouraging and nurturing a culture of collaboration and cohesion. They are responsible for orchestrating the collective efforts of the team to achieve their goals efficiently. In terms of code, this role is typically hands-off role.

• People – Team Leads need to have strong interpersonal skills, good communicators and build strong relationships with team members. It’s about putting people over processes and nurturing a culture of positivity and inclusivity.
• Coordination – They need to good organisation and time-keeping skills, being able to manage multiple workflows and projects. They need to use their communication skills to keep in touch with stakeholders and provide progress updates. They need to understand the urgency or timescales and help the team to prioritise and schedule in work.
• Mentoring – Members of the team will often need more interpersonal and career support and guidance; this is where a Team Lead can help the individuals to developer their skills and tackle challenges.
• Mediation – There can often be competing solutions on a team. As a Team Lead, being less directly involved in the solution, allows the advantage of being able to have a more neutral perspective, acting as a facilitator to help in mediating and resolving disputes as they arise.

As you may be able to tell, some of these responsibilities will also be taken on by a Tech Lead, for example, mentoring where more junior members of the team may need much more specific, technical hands-on guidance and support.

In summary, while Tech Leads typically have the most technical knowledge within the team, Team Leads, though not always technical as strong as a Tech Lead, recognise the value of understanding the technology. They are adept at comfortably communicating in technical language with the team and asking pertinent questions.

What this means in practice is, when working on a project to introduce a new feature, a Team Lead often acts as the coordinator between stakeholders and the team. They grasp priorities, organise work, and manage timelines. Meanwhile, a Tech Lead plays a critical role in guiding the team in making technical decisions, contributing to system design and architecture, and ensuring best practices and code quality.

In essence, Team Leads and Tech Leads organise themselves in a way that optimises effective solution delivery, leveraging their unique strengths to achieve success. The distinction between a Team Lead and a Tech Lead hinges on their primary areas of focus and key responsibilities.

Tech Leads are technology-centric and are prioritise technical solutions, while Team Leads are people-centric and prioritise nurturing the team.

So, the next time you encounter the question, “What’s the difference between a Team Lead and a Tech Lead?” remember, it’s all about where they focus their expertise and efforts. Tech Leads gravitate toward technology, while Team Leads focus on getting the best out of the people.