I will disagree with one point. Neither eng managers nor tech leads should be doing project management. It is a unique skill and worth having someone explicitly in charge. They should own the structure of requirements docs, story breaktown, ticketing, jira processes, etc. While they may be somewhat technical they are more ensuring consistency and quality of process without burdening devs.
The best team composition I have ever worked on looks like this:
Product manager: Has <=3 teams knows company product / strategic goals / customer needs. Sets high level goals, updates those in response to scope estimates, coordinates with product org.
Eng manager: Highly technical, has institutional knowledge of codebase + understands the politics of the org. Has <=3 teams. Sets tone, handles dev career growth, mediates/prevents conflicts, recruits, shields devs from institutional nonsense.
Senior Dev / Tech lead: Trusted by eng manager to independently make arch level decisions. Can mentor / peer with / support other devs.
Dev1: Specialist in one relevant aspect of stack, but with general knowledge (can pick up any ticket if needed)
Dev2: Same as above, different specialty
QA: Half-time dedicated QA resource
UI/UX Designer: 33-50% time for team.
Project Manager: Half-time dedicated resource. Owns Jira, scrum master etc as noted above.
This group is flexible, resilient, and plays to people's strengths. If you don't have a project manager then yes it can be left to the eng manager or tech lead, but it's not ideal.
The best team composition I have ever worked on looks like this:
Product manager: Has <=3 teams knows company product / strategic goals / customer needs. Sets high level goals, updates those in response to scope estimates, coordinates with product org.
Eng manager: Highly technical, has institutional knowledge of codebase + understands the politics of the org. Has <=3 teams. Sets tone, handles dev career growth, mediates/prevents conflicts, recruits, shields devs from institutional nonsense.
Senior Dev / Tech lead: Trusted by eng manager to independently make arch level decisions. Can mentor / peer with / support other devs.
Dev1: Specialist in one relevant aspect of stack, but with general knowledge (can pick up any ticket if needed)
Dev2: Same as above, different specialty
QA: Half-time dedicated QA resource
UI/UX Designer: 33-50% time for team.
Project Manager: Half-time dedicated resource. Owns Jira, scrum master etc as noted above.
This group is flexible, resilient, and plays to people's strengths. If you don't have a project manager then yes it can be left to the eng manager or tech lead, but it's not ideal.