Well drat

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
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Just learned my team lead is leaving which is bad timing. We tend to get busy around this time of year so a lot of work will fall on me and I quite like my current work balance. We also worked well together so there is some risk there. A year or two later would have been better as I would be better positioned to take his place. As it is it would be a tough sell as I've not been on the team very long so I'm missing much of the institutional knowledge useful for the position and some of the technical skill. Averaging less than a year between promotions would likely not sit well with people on my team either and we've previously been given some pull with how we hire for our team. There is some talk they would just have another team lead take us on and backfill with a technical position instead of a mix of supervisor\technical.

I'll push for a team lead posting and apply if it goes through but this would be, by far, the least prepared I would feel for a position
 

brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
24,396
5,842
136
good luck. i had a guy do this to me and team lead was thrust upon me. did it for 3 years but didn't like the stress, so i ended up quitting and finding a place where i didn't have to lead anymore.

and now my new place has attempted to make me a lead 3 times, but i have successfully kept them at bay thus far.
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,097
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What does a "team leader" mean in this world and what exactly are "teams"?

Does it mean that the dude thrust his scepter upon the ground, stormed off to grog wenches in the next village, and left you guys behind to fight over the scepter just ahead of the spring meat, ale, and fertility festival?

sounds like a bummer.
 
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Nov 8, 2012
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What does a "team leader" mean in this world and what exactly are "teams"?

Does it mean that the dude thrust his scepter upon the ground, stormed off to grog wenches in the next village, and left you guys behind to fight over the scepter just ahead of the spring meat, ale, and fertility festival?

sounds like a bummer.

You mean you don't know?

Team lead is a euphemism for "manager" but without the title, and thus without the pay.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,097
30,047
146
I cook little bitty cellular things in tubes and sacrifice small animals when necessary, harvesting their organs for purposes, and wear 20 year-old concert t-shirts and holey jeans to work.

So no, no I don't.
 
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ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
38,134
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For my department, team lead is the technical lead and team coordinator. Management duties fall to the manager.
 

highland145

Lifer
Oct 12, 2009
43,877
6,239
136
Just learned my team lead is leaving which is bad timing. We tend to get busy around this time of year so a lot of work will fall on me and I quite like my current work balance. We also worked well together so there is some risk there. A year or two later would have been better as I would be better positioned to take his place. As it is it would be a tough sell as I've not been on the team very long so I'm missing much of the institutional knowledge useful for the position and some of the technical skill. Averaging less than a year between promotions would likely not sit well with people on my team either and we've previously been given some pull with how we hire for our team. There is some talk they would just have another team lead take us on and backfill with a technical position instead of a mix of supervisor\technical.

I'll push for a team lead posting and apply if it goes through but this would be, by far, the least prepared I would feel for a position
waaa. Guy works on a university campus and complains about the view. It's like playboy looking down on hustler.

:D

How very inconsiderate of the bastard.
And it was him month to buy the mayo. Bastard.

good luck. i had a guy do this to me and team lead was thrust upon me. did it for 3 years but didn't like the stress, so i ended up quitting and finding a place where i didn't have to lead anymore.

and now my new place has attempted to make me a lead 3 times, but i have successfully kept them at bay thus far.
I hear that some herb will fix your anxiety problems.

You mean you don't know?

Team lead is a euphemism for "manager" but without the title, and thus without the pay.
literal much?

I cook little bitty cellular things in tubes and sacrifice small animals when necessary, harvesting their organs for purposes, and wear 20 year-old concert t-shirts and holey jeans to work.

So no, no I don't.
PETA knows where you live.

So do I.
 
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Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,471
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For my department, team lead is the technical lead and team coordinator. Management duties fall to the manager.

Basically. Plus it gives us someone with a more impressive title for the inevitable times our clients don't want to hear answers from the rest of us

waaa. Guy works on a university campus and complains about the view. It's like playboy looking down on hustler.

I only sometimes get nice views. Sometimes they stick me in a trailer or broom closet when I'm working at a college
 

highland145

Lifer
Oct 12, 2009
43,877
6,239
136
I only sometimes get nice views. Sometimes they stick me in a trailer or broom closet when I'm working at a college
423.jpg
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
38,134
18,618
146
Basically. Plus it gives us someone with a more impressive title for the inevitable times our clients don't want to hear answers from the rest of us

Pretty much. Although, I work with a bunch of old timers, and only a few of them keep up with tech. So while my current team lead is a great guy, and very knowledgeable on legacy equipment, some things are out of his depth and will never be something he cares to grasp. But, he can still repeat the same things as me back to the clients. He's more of a people person than I am anyways, very good at composing emails. I've saved a few and learned much professionalism from the old timer :)
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
52,844
1,049
126
You mean you don't know?

Team lead is a euphemism for "manager" but without the title, and thus without the pay.

More like a supervisor because we have both a lead and a regular first-line manager. But the manager is less in touch with our day-to-day activities. More of a paperwork manager. Team leads are vital in our work, sort of a much-involved project manager with technical knowledge would be. We have large depts and 1 manager overseeing cannot possibly handle the overhead PLUS babysit workload. In a way, yes team leads are "managing" but they also do regular work alongside us. Hell, we "manage" quite a lot too.

We are app developers and if our team lead left, we would be left to fend for ourselves in terms of work prioritization, setting up meetings, creating change records, audit compliancy, finding & challenging for new work, and dealing with the customer for every little thing, wasting time on calls. We are much more cohesive with a technical lead (hence the term lead). Our regular manager on the other hand does HR/compliancy, revalidations, annual reviews, and oversees an entire dept which may handle different infrastructures (1 lead for each). Lots of work to go around in a large company.
 
Last edited:

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
52,994
5,888
126
It'll all work out fine.

Two projects ago for me my tech lead came back from vacation and we were in our daily standup and he was like 'well last week I was on vacation in California, and I was also interviewing at Google, and I accepted an offer and will be leaving in 2 weeks" and everyone didn't know if he was serious or joking. Well he was dead serious. He was one of those guys that had so much key knowledge that no one else knew.

Two weeks later he picked up from MD and moved his whole family to Mountain View, CA. Everyone thought everything was going to go to shit but it ended up being just fine. Life moves on.
 

BarkingGhostar

Diamond Member
Nov 20, 2009
8,409
1,617
136
Just learned my team lead is leaving which is bad timing. We tend to get busy around this time of year so a lot of work will fall on me and I quite like my current work balance. We also worked well together so there is some risk there. A year or two later would have been better as I would be better positioned to take his place. As it is it would be a tough sell as I've not been on the team very long so I'm missing much of the institutional knowledge useful for the position and some of the technical skill. Averaging less than a year between promotions would likely not sit well with people on my team either and we've previously been given some pull with how we hire for our team. There is some talk they would just have another team lead take us on and backfill with a technical position instead of a mix of supervisor\technical.

I'll push for a team lead posting and apply if it goes through but this would be, by far, the least prepared I would feel for a position
You could be in my position, which is someone whose work center is about to be scrapped while the work is there and increasing only so that AT&T can send it to an overseas work center. Not a contractor, but an actual AT&T overseas work center that was started to overflow excess work to them instead of to 3rd party contractors. Now the company feels it is best to rid the company of Americans and get the Czech republic to do the work for them. Go global economy (ahem, greed).
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,337
12,562
126
www.anyf.ca
They probably won't replace him. Seems like the new trend now days. When someone quits or retires everyone just has to work harder!

We actually did manage to get a replacement for someone here who quit (took a year or two), but it's because the only way to make the scheduling work was that everyone does over time shifts, so it was costing the company lot of money.
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,471
3,590
126
You could be in my position, which is someone whose work center is about to be scrapped while the work is there and increasing only so that AT&T can send it to an overseas work center. Not a contractor, but an actual AT&T overseas work center that was started to overflow excess work to them instead of to 3rd party contractors. Now the company feels it is best to rid the company of Americans and get the Czech republic to do the work for them. Go global economy (ahem, greed).

Sorry to hear that. I've been in a similar position where a job end date was looming due to layoffs and it sucks. Hope you find a new job quickly!

They probably won't replace him. Seems like the new trend now days. When someone quits or retires everyone just has to work harder!

We actually did manage to get a replacement for someone here who quit (took a year or two), but it's because the only way to make the scheduling work was that everyone does over time shifts, so it was costing the company lot of money.

No they definitely will back fill him with a purely technical position at least. I think its a little unusual to be hourly instead of salary higher up in IT but I think it helps keep management cognizant of workload due to overtime pay. Our current manager is good enough to realize we still need at least one more person without that but it helps with the higher ups if they were inclined to disagree
 
Nov 8, 2012
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More like a supervisor because we have both a lead and a regular first-line manager. But the manager is less in touch with our day-to-day activities. More of a paperwork manager. Team leads are vital in our work, sort of a much-involved project manager with technical knowledge would be. We have large depts and 1 manager overseeing cannot possibly handle the overhead PLUS babysit workload. In a way, yes team leads are "managing" but they also do regular work alongside us. Hell, we "manage" quite a lot too.

We are app developers and if our team lead left, we would be left to fend for ourselves in terms of work prioritization, setting up meetings, creating change records, audit compliancy, finding & challenging for new work, and dealing with the customer for every little thing, wasting time on calls. We are much more cohesive with a technical lead (hence the term lead). Our regular manager on the other hand does HR/compliancy, revalidations, annual reviews, and oversees an entire dept which may handle different infrastructures (1 lead for each). Lots of work to go around in a large company.

You're kinda proving my point here? I mean, yes - they do regular work as well, but it's really work that someone with the title of manager SHOULD be handling. They are ultimately just screwing you out of the pay is all it boils down to.
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,471
3,590
126
Update: my manager asked me to be part of the replacement interview process with him. Probably a bad sign in terms of him thinking about me for the job. On the very positive side he brought up a potential title change in the 'short term' and getting a lead title in the long term. A bit vague but 'short term' for the last promotion from him was around a year. We set our projects and goals soon so I should be able to get a better idea of timeframe then. He passed along the lead requirements for me to read and comment on and, looking at them, there are definitely some areas that aren't good fits for me yet.