Nexus Mods · Engineering · Tech Lead Expectations
Tech Lead is not a reward for being the best engineer in the pod. It's a responsibility, and a different job. This is what it asks of you. Read it if you hold the role or want it. Hold yourself to it, and push back where you think it's wrong.
You are the technical owner for the whole pod: every technical discipline in it, including the ones you're less comfortable with. You're also a critical partner to Product and Design, and the person who keeps decisions aligned with a platform that all other pillars depend on. Your job is to reduce chaos. The bar is the same in every pod.
The role is open to Senior engineers and above. You are not expected to be an expert in all disciplines. You won't be assessed as one either. Your depth in your own discipline is a precondition for this role, and is measured with your Head of Department.
The pod doesn't need more output from you in your strongest discipline. It needs leadership across all of them. Those are different jobs. The first is far more comfortable.
You do own whether the engineers in your pod get better. Coaching and mentorship are core to this role, not a nice-to-have you get to when delivery calms down.
| Head of Department owns | You own |
|---|---|
| Salary, contracts, HR matters | Whether the engineers in your pod are getting better |
| Formal performance reviews and promotion decisions | The evidence those decisions are made on |
| The technical bar for the discipline | Whether the pod's work meets it, and flagging when it doesn't |
| Career pathway and levelling conversations | Day-to-day feedback, pairing, code review as teaching |
| Hiring and onboarding process | Whether a new joiner in your pod is actually ramping up well |
| Capability gaps across the discipline org-wide | Capability gaps inside your pod, in every discipline |
If someone in your pod is stagnating and you noticed but assumed it was the HoD's problem, that's a Tech Lead failure. Raise it, and do something about the technical half yourself.
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Everything expected of a Tech Lead hangs off five dimensions. For each one: what it means, what good looks like, and what it looks like when it's missing. Incidents test all five at once, so they come last.