This article is a cross-post from the Shopzilla Tech Blog.
It’s been a thoroughly eye-opening experience to frame our roles at Shopzilla. Petter and I were charged with defining the Lead Engineer role at Shopzilla.
- I hold “excellence” as my yardstick.
- I am a software craftsman, I am proud of our code, and I promote this craftsmanship and pride amongst other engineers.
- I lead by example, and I love getting my hands dirty.
- I love to learn and teach through conversations about code.
- I favor reuse over reinventing the wheel.
- I am passionate about performance and know there is no such thing as “perf spray”.
- I engage other engineers, and in seeking them out I foster communication.
- I heart QA.
- I ensure my decisions are based on not just my own competence, but that of the whole team.
- I am a mentor, and I understand the difference between posing questions and mandating solutions.
- I am approachable.
- I encourage my teams to develop their own technical voice.
- I ensure my engineering team is not an island – our discoveries are shared; our struggles are too.
- I help strike the balance between quality and getting functionality out the door.
- I help business owners translate ideas into technical solutions.
- I find the bumps in the road before we hit them.
I am a lead engineer and my success is the sum of the success of the people around me.
