A team lead is a manager who occupies an intermediary position between regular employees and the company or project management. The role of a team lead encompasses several key functions: team management, fostering employee motivation and development, hiring and onboarding new specialists, overseeing task planning and control, and facilitating communication and coordination with higher management.

Interview with Certified IT Expert and DevOps Team Lead, Andrei Bobrov

Andrei, you have been a team lead on several large-scale projects and in well-known companies. How did you obtain this position, and what were your responsibilities for these projects? What key moments and achievements led you to leadership roles in your career?

I began acquiring management skills at Vyatka State University, where I served as a headman while also working as a laboratory assistant, conducting classes for junior students. My career in IT infrastructure started in 2005, where I worked to combine managerial and technical tasks. 

In 2010, I assumed the role of Lead Technical Services Specialist at Fujitsu GDC, working on the Volvo project, where ambitious engineers were invited to participate in the year-long "Talent Pool" training project. This program included numerous practical sessions that reinforced theoretical material. There, I learned skills such as project management, team building, and presentation.

In 2015, I took on the role of Head of Telecom Department for the large national "Platon" project. I managed a team of system engineers who were based in another city, utilizing known and inventing new methods of remote team management. Now, post-pandemic, this has become common practice.

In 2019, at GE Digital, I served as the Team Lead & Senior Release Engineer, where I led a team of DevOps engineers and defended the project before the client. Since 2021, I've been working as a Lead System Engineer at a famous IT integrator. Here, I contribute to the hiring process by conducting technical interviews as an expert. Additionally, I fulfill team lead duties within the DevOps team, overseeing a large-scale PaaS platform project. Concurrently, I have been involved as a certified instructor at the Fastlane training center-teaching, demonstrating classroom management, capturing audience attention, and delivering effective presentations.

A Team Lead's Responsibilities

Who is a team lead, and how do they work?

The core concept revolves around the team lead being a pivotal member who interacts with both the team and external entities such as other teams, streams, management, and clients. The role necessitates a blend of technical skills (hard skills) and management and interpersonal skills (soft skills). The team lead sets the agenda for meetings and discussions, unites the team, and meets with management and clients. 

As a team lead, I control the processes of project development, evolution, and support by creating a list of current tasks, distributing them throughout the team, and monitoring progress. Based on the roadmaps formed by management, I create a task scope aligned with the current stages of project development and negotiate the goals to be accomplished within set deadlines.

Team Lead's Interaction with the Team

How does a team lead facilitate day-to-day interaction?

The best practices of team interaction feature daily status sync meetings or daily standups, where team members share what tasks they are working on and what has been completed. The team lead clarifies details, suggests solutions, assigns tasks, and conveys important announcements. The role of a standup leader can rotate weekly to ensure all team members are actively involved in the process.

If necessary, one-on-one meetings are held to personally talk with an engineer, understand their motivation, and devise solutions to specific challenges. These meetings help combat staff turnover, quickly resolve conflicts, and motivate employees.

Team Lead's Hiring Practices

What is the role of a team lead in the recruitment process?

When opening a job vacancy, the team lead crafts a detailed job description that outlines the responsibilities and required technologies. HR uses this description for database searches, public job site publishing, and candidate selection.

The recruitment process typically includes several stages of interviews. Initially, the candidates undergo an HR screening followed by a technical interview. In smaller projects, technical and project interviews may be combined, while in larger companies, they are separated. At my current job, for instance, I was certified under the interviewer training program.

Team Work Planning

How should a team lead approach task distribution?

There are two models of task distribution: pull and push. I encourage the pull model, where employees choose tasks based on their interests and skill set. This approach fosters motivation, and the team works more effectively, completing more tasks per sprint. 

The push model is used in situations where tasks are being reluctantly taken. This approach ensures that responsibilities are allocated effectively, even in challenging scenarios. However, when the team's capacity is correctly calculated, and the sprint planning is well-balanced, this issue is typically minimized. It's essential to get feedback from the team and analyze sprints accordingly. The team lead should arrange a "retro," or retrospective meeting to collect feedback, identify actionable items, and areas of improvement.

Team Lead Tools

What tools and methodologies enhance team efficiency?

I use modern approaches and tools: SCRUM and Agile methodologies for flexible and efficient development, Jira task tracker for project management and progress tracking, CI/CD automated pipelines for continuous integration and deployment, metrics and dashboards for performance monitoring, and accessible analytics for informed decision-making. 

These tools together enhance the efficiency of both myself and my teams. During Git reviews, I evaluate code quality, provide feedback, and implement corrections. This process helps us maintain high coding standards and improve the skills of all team members. Automated pipeline scripts and testing further verify the achieved results and deliver changes to the project, ensuring the stability and reliability of our releases.

Conclusion: About the Team Lead Profession

Who should aspire to become a team lead? What aspects should they study to succeed in this role?

A team lead is characterized by strong communication skills, active listening, a developed personal opinion, leadership potential, and a readiness to guide a team while continuously pursuing professional growth. 

This role is ideal for those aspiring to advance not only in their field of expertise but also in team management and motivation. I love this job because it grants me control of many processes and decisions, and I apply a systematic approach, metrics, and alignment with business objectives across all my projects.

It's important for a team lead to balance soft and hard skills—they must excel in communication while also maintaining expertise in their field. Certification is an excellent way to maintain knowledge levels, while soft skills come with experience. Focus on developing leadership, communication, conflict resolution skills, and a deep understanding of your team's domain. Studying project management methodologies like Agile or ITIL and training in interpersonal relations and personnel motivation can significantly strengthen your chances of successfully becoming a team lead.