When a full-time lead makes sense
A full-time lead makes sense at the point where you still need to be in the loop, and no longer want to be in every detail.
Does it sound like this?
- “Every technical decision still comes back to me.”
- “When something breaks in production, there’s no one whose job it is.”
- “We’re hiring engineers faster than we can tell who’s good.”
- “Our senior engineers are ready for more, and there’s nothing above them.”
- “I want someone in it with me, not someone I have to brief.”
Then you need someone whose full-time job is to
Own the outcomes
Whatever has no owner defaults to you: the technical direction, the trade-off nobody framed, the thing that breaks with no name on it. I take that default, and the decisions still get made without you weighing in on every one.
Grow the engineers you have into the leads you’ll need
I set what good looks like here: the bar new engineers clear, and the scope the ones you already have grow into. Your next leads come from people who already know the product, and the team comes out more capable than it went in.
Be in it with you
The person who makes the call is the person who lives with it. You stop briefing me: I know why it was built this way and what we chose not to do, so the next decision starts there rather than from a summary.
I’m open to the right full-time opportunity. If you want to explore whether there’s a fit, let’s connect and get into the details.