What Does a Dev Team Lead Do?
What does a dev team lead do? Take a look at how they help support teams, their duties, responsibilities, and how they progress their careers. A development team lead is responsible for the whole software team. They usually transition from being a developer, QA tester, product manager, or any other technical role. However, they do not just write or design the code. Instead, they coordinate efforts across teams to deliver software products successfully. But is that all they do? Let’s find out.
What is a Dev Team Lead?
Developer team leaders are problem solvers and the first ones who remove team roadblocks. They are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and write code whenever needed. Additionally, their role is to help the team keep motivated and productive.
To guide the team in the right direction, team leaders fulfill the following roles:
- Team Manager – keeps the team in line with all activities and task prioritization.
- Point of Communication -distributes information, including requirements, updates, or challenges to all stakeholders.
- Organizer -keeps track of all project activities, tasks, documents, and employees.
- Goal setter-determines goals and objectives at the beginning of the project until it is accomplished.
- Mediator -must resolve conflict or miscommunication that may arise to avoid any negative impact on team collaboration.
Development team leaders monitor productivity, outputs, and control the pace of software delivery during the whole development phase. Team management is one of their most significant roles in the organization. What other responsibilities do they carry?
- Guides software development teams through coaching sessions or mentorship.
- Able to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
- Must have a high understanding of available technical solutions and contribute to team success at the code level.
- Collaborates with Development Project Managers to ensure requirements are met and delivered accurately.
- Able to effectively provide reasonable estimates for project timelines from design until delivery.
- Able to provide regular project status updates to address any project requirements, issues, or changes.
- Manage teams to maintain a high quality for software products by establishing good habits and practices.
- Evaluates a variety of software products, provides peer review and solutions to related code.
- Adhere to a set standard of development principles and deliver timely and on-budget solutions.
- Define phases in the product life cycle that includes activities and milestones.
- Create a documentation process such as the project event and risk log or any other reporting needed.
- Participate in project review meetings to provide updates on progress.
- Coordinate with internal teams to ensure alignment for the seamless implementation of current, including new systems.
- Take responsibility in making strategic decisions that will help ensure the implementation of initiatives.
Qualifications of a Dev Team Lead
To be considered for a team lead role, one must actively pursue higher education. Many enroll in continuing education by getting an MBA or any advanced degree. Such candidates get more credibility, especially when they have an idea in business management. Here is a list of standard qualifications for a development lead:
- Proven expertise in Microsoft.NET technologies including WPF, WCF, LINQ, WF, and EF.
- Able to build with Microsoft.NET 3.5+ using C#, .NET, or SQL technologies
- Experience in people management with the ability to lead a huge team
- Experience in employee personal development at an individual and team level.
- Be able to lead and manage the timely delivery of systems or software development projects.
- Experience in various software development methodologies that includes Agile and Waterfall.
- Experience in architectural and implementation-level design
- Must have a strong desire to maintain technical capabilities and expertise in the latest technologies.
