— What have been the most challenging technical problems you've had to solve in your career?
I'm yet to solve it, but nowadays I see great potential in teaching people how to debug and how to experiment. It might not sound like a technical problem, and it's partly not, but it has a significant technical part of developer tooling and it's efficient usage, of specific software development things that are only present themselves in software engineering, but are actually really common given enough abstraction level. Currently I'm reading "How to Solve it" by George Polya and I'm fascinated by how much of mathematical prowess could be applied to development.
— How do you keep up with your professional development and stay current with industry trends?
Currently my professional development consists of:
- Reading books, from "Thinking, Fast and Slow" to "Types and Programming Languages"
- Be a part of a frontend community where you can trust the opinion of people a bit more that internet randos
- Screwing around and finding out
In my experience, people greatly underestimate the value in books and deluding themselves that the books could be replaced by articles. That might be just me though.
— What do you believe is most crucial for success in a Tech Lead role?
To understand that it's genuinely a different role and to understand what is required from you from the organisational and stakeholder's standpoint. I recommend "Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track" by Will Larson.
— What development methodologies do you use in your team and why?
I prefer not to put label on what methodology to use and why LeSS/MoRE/JustEnoughAgile is the new best thing, but to consciously apply certain useful parts depending on the context. What I just said is risk-free way of sounding smart without actually answering the question. Jokes aside, for me the key is to be mindful of what and why you're doing things the certain, to be aware of tradeoffs different approaches may have and to be well informed of old stuff and new studies. I'm a fan of XP (don't @ me) and lean/kanban style of work, though.
— What qualities do you look for in new members of your frontend team?
Be smart, keep learning new things, don't be a jerk, be able to do something fast, be able to make something awesome.
— How do you keep your team motivated and maintain high levels of engagement?
Learn about emotional intelligence, about active listening, how to get and give feedback (and generally how to talk to people) and don't forget that your colleagues are people, human beings, living beings, and not a resource. I can recommend reading "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life" by Marshall Rosenberg. Oh yeah, and go to therapy.
