Sparkbox Tech Lead Role Description

Overview

At Sparkbox, the tech lead is the right hand to the Project Manager.
The success of a tech lead is measured by the success of the team and the project.
To be successful, a tech lead needs to be able to step out of the immediate coding needs of a project to understand, prepare, and regularly articulate the vision of the project.
Tech lead models how we work together.
A tech lead empowers and unlocks the team through communication, leadership, technical skills, and impact.

Listens effectively, recognizing and clarifying assumptions as needed.
Acts as a mediator who facilitates discussion, often guiding the team through multiple options and varied opinions to thoughtful solutions.
Makes clear and convincing presentations during team and client discussions.
Articulates thoughts using asynchronous, distributable mediums such as long-form writing and diagrams.
Creates clear and thorough cards and pull requests that aid in development and testing, accounting for the target audience’s experience and context.
Advocates for the architecture and the business, by clearly communicating the state of the architecture and the impact of decisions.
Mentors and teaches developers. Clearly explains the reasoning for something when reviewing code or explaining conventions.

Expert in the shared tools of Sparkbox, for example, the terminal, Git, etc.
Knows the value of a robust build and delivery pipeline; able to create a pipeline using the tools available to a given client project.
Recognizes, can describe, and can create a valuable test suite for a given client project.
Capable of debugging the hairiest problems that the team encounters both in development and production. To this end, a tech lead knows how to deliver a system that surfaces system health and aids in diagnosing problems in development and production.
Go-to expert in one area of the codebase of a given client project; understands the broad architecture and how the parts relate to the whole.
Sought out for and provides thoughtful technical advice and weighs in on technical decisions that impact a given client project, other teams, or the client at large.
Researches and proposes new technologies, techniques, and tools that may be adopted by clients and Sparkbox.
Anticipates technical issues at the product level and makes architectural and design decisions to avoid them.
Aware of, recognizes, and capable of invoking common software design patterns to create well-factored software.

Continually learns and pursues self-development; evaluating one’s own strengths and weaknesses, especially during reviews, goal setting, and 1-on-1s.
Deals effectively with pressure, remaining empathetic, positive, transparent, and persistent. Recovers quickly from setbacks.
Persistent in the face of roadblocks; dispatches them efficiently, pulling in others as necessary. Requires minimal direction/oversight.
Establishes and maintains healthy relationships with clients and others. Receives, acknowledges, and processes negative or emotion-driven situations without reacting in kind.

Stays "ahead of the project" from a planning perspective by maintaining and communicating a shared technical vision.
Works with the project manager throughout the project to understand the budget, to guide decisions, and plan reasonable iterations.
Plans and decomposes work to avoid single, large releases to encourage regular transparency of the project progress and reduce overall risk.
Regularly delivers software on-time and constantly works to communicate ever more refined estimates, especially as estimates grow.
Quickly breaks down complex problems into potential solutions, knowns, and unknowns, in order to get to solid resolutions.
Talks to the customer to understand their needs, goals, and constraints and aligns these with the technical vision of the project.
Consistently able to reduce the complexity of projects, services, and processes in order to get more done with less work.
Understands the value of relative sizing, how to lead a team in forming an economy, and how to forecast using these types of estimates.
Enables and encourages transparency, planning, and decision making with clients and the team through clear, available, and consistent communication.

Sustains and evolves the architecture by choosing the right cards to care deeply about and contribute code.
Takes initiative to identify and solve important problems, coordinating with others on cross-cutting technical issues.
Partners with the client, PM, and design lead to drive requirements that take into account all parties' needs.
Identifies problems/risks and works to mitigate their impact.
Makes others better through code reviews, thorough documentation, technical guidance, and mentoring.