> The Tech Lead is a “hybrid” role with one foot in management and the other in engineering
I may have a limited experience but I've never seen an effective Tech Lead who was a hybrid like this and I have serious doubts it's even possible. The amount of time these tech leads spend coding necessarily expands and consumes the time they have available for management. The type of "management" they do then becomes more defensive/territorial than directing/guiding. In the end they end up more of a dev with super powers who has a veto over every other developer's technical decisions, but is still primarily concerned with completing their own contributions rather than the project and team health as a whole. In the best case, they do split work, delegate, mentor, and lead meetings, but always end up doing the business critical or challenging pieces themselves (because why would I take the time to explain this when I could just do it...), and in the worst case, they don't delegate at all and actually communicate even less than they did as an individual contributor.
I may have a limited experience but I've never seen an effective Tech Lead who was a hybrid like this and I have serious doubts it's even possible. The amount of time these tech leads spend coding necessarily expands and consumes the time they have available for management. The type of "management" they do then becomes more defensive/territorial than directing/guiding. In the end they end up more of a dev with super powers who has a veto over every other developer's technical decisions, but is still primarily concerned with completing their own contributions rather than the project and team health as a whole. In the best case, they do split work, delegate, mentor, and lead meetings, but always end up doing the business critical or challenging pieces themselves (because why would I take the time to explain this when I could just do it...), and in the worst case, they don't delegate at all and actually communicate even less than they did as an individual contributor.