Hire a Technical Lead with Nearshoring Company

The IT industry is highly dynamic and constantly redefines the scope of work for each specialist. The developer population continuously grows with an expectation to grow to nearly 29 million specialists in 2024, as Statista shows. At the same time, new programming languages and branches emerge each year, which inevitably leads to new professions, managerial positions, and IT jobs. The interpretations of specializations within the hybrid and dynamic IT sphere are limitless.

Moreover, each company can have a particular and tailor-made approach to the composition of the teams. It is confusing to define what some job positions are and which responsibilities they have. One of such semi-managerial and entirely technical positions is a technical lead.

Who Is a Technical Lead?

Tech lead is frequently used as a synonymous or total equivalent of the team lead. However, there are clearly defined distinctions between these two specialists. Indeed, tech leads can take on the team lead role in some companies and projects. In other cases, this position can be redundant due to the horizontal management approach. Their scope of work is more inclined to control technical aspects of the work. 

Tech Lead is one of the career paths and a logical progression in the company of experienced developers who have a deep understanding of the code and a global vision of product development and its launch. For most companies, there is a distinction of a lead developer vs technical lead, where the first one is a senior working on a project, and the letter manages the team working on it. Some specialists outgrow their level of knowledge and senior status to become a chief software architect.  

Tech lead controls all processes associated with the development and launch of the product, consult and train other IT specialists, and help identify potential and actual problems that arise during product development. Having a tech lead in a team helps to ensure the productivity of the team and improve the overall performance of the team and their work results.

What Are the Main Technical Lead Roles and Responsibilities? 

Not every team has a tech leader, especially when it comes to startups with horizontal management or “without a leader” policy. Tech leads are usually essential in the companies where the team works on multiple or very multi-level and complex projects, and most developers are buried under ever-increasing current and small tasks.

In this case, the technical lead developer plays the role of a product manager, a consultant and a leader for other programmers and is fully responsible for delivering the end-product and post-launch support.

Product Management Role

Their range of responsibilities may also include:

• Product functionality analysis. (In some companies, this responsibility lies on the shoulders of the functional lead, although the functional lead vs technical lead difference is visible only in large-scale organizations.);
• Clarifying the project’s technical aspects include coding language, implementation, and servers;
• Distributing tasks among the team and team training;
• Working on developing the product (coding) and helping to release it;
• Marking the progress, short-term and long-term goals, and monitoring the milestones;
• Updating the software, analyzing the possible weak points, and fixing them;
• Doing security checks or implementing risk mitigation processes.

They can also monitor customer feedback on a launched product, generate reports on the product, suggest changes or updates, and oversee the implementation process.

Technical Leader Role

Often, the duties of a team leader are also transferred to tech leaders, especially in small companies where they do not see the need to have several people to perform related duties. At the same time, the lead is expected to perform not only in the technical aspect of the project but also in active communication with the team, maintaining a familiar spirit and controlling burnout in the team.

Unfortunately, not all people who can become those leads can also be incredible team leads. For this, you need to combine the qualities of a high-level coding specialist and communications strategist, which is a rare occasion to meet in one person. In large companies, the size of responsibility and range of duties is unreasonable, which is why these two positions require clear distinction.

On the other hand, technical lead skills still include solid soft skills, as their direct responsibilities include negotiation, consulting, and task distribution. Tech leads can be responsible for selecting new specialists to the team, their training, and distribution of responsibilities within the team. The tech lead thus defines long-term and short-term goals for the development team and monitors its implementation.

In general, the description of the responsibilities of a tech lead can differ drastically depending on the company hiring the tech lead. For some, tech lead functions are performed by a team lead and vice versa.

It is a highly demanded profession, the demand for which is expected to grow to 11% in 2028, with 46,800 open vacancies in the US only. In general, the tech lead earns around $113 531 yearly.

If the company doesn’t know how to choose the ideal candidate for a tech lead position, it is worth contacting recruitment agency startup experts that will not only help create the perfect technical lead job description but also select a candidate for the role.

Main Reasons Why Hiring a Tech Lead Is Worth It 

As was mentioned above, not all development teams require the tech lead. Some of them distribute the main responsibilities among the team members and stick to a “no-lead” type of organization. However, having the tech lead helps in more than one way for most companies:

• To enhance workflow. Since the tech lead is responsible for the product launch process and its development, they understand the priority of tasks. The tech lead helps to identify the tasks of the first importance and distribute them among the team so that they are completed in the optimal time. 
• For employee training and retention. A tech lead will help strengthen your current team. Companies often do not fully understand the potential of their employees, and developers who are stuck in mundane work with no prospects and do not see career growth within a company quit their jobs. The tech lead helps to see the developer’s strengths, leads and trains them to ensure that the team is constantly growing professionally. 
• To improve team guidance. The team can waste a vast amount of time solving small issues or working in the wrong direction. It usually occurs due to a lack of understanding of the big picture and market analysis. A tech lead avoids slowing down development processes or useless work by sprints setting clear goals for a limited time frame. 
• To save costs and time. All the reasons above lead to the main benefit of having tech lead – reducing costs and production time.
• To boost product quality delivery via expert tech guidance. The tech lead holds full responsibility for a production process and release, and it is in their interest to provide a quality product result at the end. Having a specialist who can optimize the development process, provide the best directions for tech implementation, and guide the team directly affects the product’s success. 

Tech Lead vs Team Lead: Are They Interchangeable? 

We touched on this topic a bit above, saying that some companies can combine the responsibilities of these two positions in one job position, but this does not always work. 

Generally, these two professions differ in both positions’ primary focus and technical training, despite sharing some responsibilities. Comparing team lead vs technical lead can be pretty hard, but there are still features that strictly separate one from the other.

The team leader is usually responsible for reporting on the project, monitoring the results of both individual specialists and the team as a whole, and may also have the right to fire or hire development teams. The job of a team lead is mainly to manage people within a project, while a software tech lead is to monitor the technical execution of tasks.

Tech lead must be a developer with a deep knowledge of code. Besides, they must clearly understand technical lead responsibilities in agile. On the other hand, the team lead may or may not be that versed in coding. 

Benefits of Hiring a Technical Lead 

Having an information technology lead in your company can help you ensure that the product development and release process are in the hands of an experienced specialist. The main benefits of having a tech lead instead of PM (or having it added to project manager) are as follows:

• Set realistic expectations. The Tech lead knows precisely if it is possible to launch the company’s product and the methods and instruments to achieve it. Having the specialist will help the company define the scope of work, make realistic time marks for its release, and know the approximate budget for it is needed.
• A clear technical vision of the product. The tech lead will define the instruments and coding language to use, guide the team and ensure that the workflow is effective.
• Up-to-date and successful product after the launch. The tech lead controls the developing stages at all levels and can quickly define the issue and fix it if there are any errors after the launch. Besides, they constantly monitor the user reviews and complaints and include them in the future updates of the product.

How Much Does an IT Technical Lead Earn Around the Globe?

The profession of technical lead implies years of experience in development, outstanding soft skills, and strong leadership. Accordingly, the salary expectations of such experts can be high. The median salary of the tech lead in the USA is around  $7.542 per month. 

At the same time, in Germany, the company will usually generally offer up to 6.340 EUR monthly, which is $7.194. The price of technical lead services in other European countries can be higher or lower depending on their location and cost of living: the general monthly salary of a tech specialist in Switzerland equals 9.166 CHF ($9.976)  and €4.150 ($4.709) of a Netherlands’ tech lead.

On the other hand, Ukrainian tech leads are the most attractive for the companies ready to hire technical lead remotely – the average monthly wage of Ukraine-based specialists is $3.100* per month. IT consulting fees remain affordable and will allow the company to save money.

*Ukrainian salaries are provided based on Mobilunity’s Recruitment Team research on the local job markets. All salaries are net and do not include the service fee (in case of hiring on a dedicated team model). The salaries are provided for comparison purposes and could be not entirely accurate. Contact us to know the exact cost of hiring a developer corresponding to the required parameters.

Mobilunity – Perfect Partner to Hire Technical Lead Developers in Ukraine

Many companies that have chosen to outsource for savings or expand the talent market stop their choice in Ukraine. However, without a reliable intermediary, it is rather challenging to figure out how to quickly find precisely those candidates that you need in a foreign market. Mobilunity, a company with over a decade of experience, will be your trusted partner in finding IT talent in Ukraine.

Throughout the years, Mobilunity has extensive cooperation experience with companies and startups from different parts of the world (Sweden, Denmark, USA, etc.) and has successful releases in various IT areas. That is why, if you want to find professionals for your project, be sure to seek advice from recruiting experts from Mobilunity. 

Your team requires a tech lead to accelerate your product launch? Hire a technical lead with ease right now! 

Written by:

Anastasia Stefanuk

Market Researcher

Disclaimer: All salaries and prices mentioned within the article are approximate NET numbers based on the research done by our in-house Recruitment Team. Please use these numbers as a guide for comparison purposes only and feel free to use the contact form to inquire on the specific cost of the talent according to your vacancy requirements and chosen model of engagement.