RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques

[WATSON, BEN]

Byron,   I thought you might find this a good read.  It’s an e-mail from Joe Richards (author of the Active Directory O’Reilly book).  He’s talking about why a tech lead (architect here at AppSig) should definitely be a separate role from an actual manager.   Much like I would rather hit the role of an architect before I would like to begin thinking of moving into any managerial role.   ~Ben         Interesting, I have a pretty different view on tech lead. The things you mention (handing out tasks, interfacing with upper management, discipline, etc...) are out and out managerial tasks from my viewpoint and if I had a manager and a tech lead, I wouldn't take any of that from the tech lead. I consider tech lead as senior techy, the guy whom you go to when you are out of ideas on what to do next to solve a technical problem. The manager is you go to for interfacing with anyone outside of the group, personnel issues and getting your tasks.  I think the manager and the tech lead need to work very closely but that is mostly to keep the manager in a good place, informed, and pointed in the right direction such that managerial decisions don't adversely impact the technical aspects of the work too much as well as letting the manager know what the technical priorities are from the tech leads viewpoint and so the manager can tell the tech lead what the real priorities are as they are decided by the manager. For instance if going into a meeting with a "customer"[1] the tech lead feeds the manager with as much knowledge as necessary so the manager isn't completely at a loss in the meeting and as things dive into tech, if they do, the tech lead is either there (if it is known ahead of time it will get deep) or available via phone to help.   Tech and managerial pieces do not normally fit together well, very different skill sets and strengths needed to do one or the other well. Very few people, IMO, can be good at tech and good at managerial. Unfortunately many companies do not see this and in order for someone to move up through the ranks they must assume managerial duties when in fact the company should have a managerial track and a technical track for the folks to follow so they can stick with the areas in which they have the greatest strength. Hopefully it is getting more and more obvious to companies that trying to make people spend all of the their time trying to improve on their weaknesses versus utilizing their strengths is a losing proposition. To put it another way, if someone is an amazing techy and a horrible manager, you don't force them to spend their time trying to be a mediocre manager. That is the person that everyone will point at and say they are a sucky manager.     joe     [1] Define as you wish, different groups have different customers. IT has the business, the business could have another aspect of the business or external, etc.     -- O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm