(10m reading time.)

This is a two-post series about the topic of Tech Lead Managers.

As my imagined audience, you have a difficult organizational problem and are consider adding the TLM title as a way to solve it. You are surrounded by a swirl of constraints, suggested solutions, and other people's strong opinions, but are trying to come to your own ideas. I want to cover what you need to think about, in the right order, to ground your own opinion.

In this post, part 1, I'll cover:

• **Context:** what the role is and different ways it may come about
• **Emotional perspective:** why many people already have very strong views about TLMs, and what you need to know to understand others' reactions

At the end of this post, I ask that you pause to reflect on your own perspective on the issue.

In part two, I'll add in more of my own advice, covering:

• Patterns and anti-patterns of the TLM role
• A decision tree and reflection questions for a concrete proposal

🗺️ Context

📕 What is a TLM?

The Tech Lead Manager role is a combination of the responsibilities otherwise belonging to a Tech Lead (TL) and an Engineering Manager (EM). Those two roles are themselves very fuzzy and different between companies: