Struggling to find a unicorn tech leader? You might need two people!
Are you struggling to find a “unicorn” technology leader who is both technical (still hands-on with the code) and a leader (excited about managing people’s careers and multiple projects)? You might need to look for two people!
Not too long ago, BetterCloud’s technology team of 90 people underwent a reorganization. One of the key changes we made was to split an existing technology leadership role into two distinct, separate positions — one for technology, one for leadership.
This approach has been very successful for us. Here’s why dividing responsibilities works.
Following natural growth paths: Techies vs. Leaders
Instead of trying to find one technology leader who has strong technical skills and is able to manage people and projects, we looked at the natural growth paths we see in technology. Technologists grow professionally by “being a multiplier” (BAM). One way to “be a multiplier” is through leadership, by managing multiple technical projects and careers. The second way is by sharing your technical knowledge (e.g., coding, design, system, and process skills) and growing others around you.
Some experienced technologists look at the next steps in their careers and decide to stay technical (e.g., keep coding). They do not want to manage multiple people or projects. Let’s refer to these people as Techies. These are people who would rather master their technical craft by continuing to code and exploring new technologies hands-on.
That said, Techies do not want to be limited contributors who only focus on themselves. Instead, they look for ways to “be a multiplier” by implementing frameworks, conducting collaborative designs, researching new technologies for fit, and sharing knowledge through one-on-one mentoring, blogs, and guilds.
Other experienced technologists evaluate their career trajectory and choose to grow in ways that are less technologically hands-on.These people find joy in aligning technology to the business, influencing careers, and orchestrating technical projects. Let’s refer to these people as Leaders.
Leaders need to spend the majority of their time on high-level tasks like providing career guidance, improving communication between teams, creating a shared vision, and setting goals for their teams. Therefore, there is little time left over for any practice with the day-to-day technologies that got them into the technology field in the first place.
Deep technical skills require practice. Leaders are still able to connect with the technical team, and they know how to support each team member’s career goals, but they need to rely on other engineers for their technical depth.
Unicorns are real… but not realistic
A unicorn technology leader is someone who is both a Techie and a Leader. They do exist — that’s right, I’m saying unicorns are real! :-D. But, dagnabbit, it will take a heck of a lot of time to find that one person. Even then, it’s challenging for one individual to practice both technical and people skills at the same time… so eventually they’ll need to make a choice.
Unicorns are typically found among the starting employees at early-stage companies. As a company grows, it becomes harder for that one person to be the star technical contributor while also making sure all of the people and team management duties are covered. Maybe you’re that person or know someone in a similar role. If you are in that position and starting to feel like you can’t handle it all, then that is actually normal! It may be time to determine what you’re most passionate about (i.e., are you a Techie or a Leader?), and find someone else to help you with the other half.
BetterCloud stopped looking for unicorns. We decided to look for Techies or Leaders, instead of one unicorn who was both. We needed to make sure we had people focused on leadership and people focused on technology. At BetterCloud, these two roles are named engineering directors (aka Leaders) and application architects (aka Techies), respectively.
Engineering directors vs. application architects
Our engineering directors (aka Leaders) focus on managing the career growth of their team members through regular one-on-one meetings (though to be clear, we expect individuals at BetterCloud to own their career growths because the drive has to come from within). Engineering directors also manage the technical risks and issues across multiple Scrum projects and teams, set the vision and goals for each team, and more.
Our application architects (aka Techies) focus on the technology. Now they have time to validate their designs with working code. They have time to research risks so that development teams don’t run into any major issues during their sprints. Additionally, they meet with each of the engineers on their teams to provide technical mentoring at a depth the engineering director cannot.
How it’s worked out for us
We are almost a year into using these new, separate roles and it’s been great! We have an easier time hiring for these positions. Our engineers enjoy having one person focused on their career and another person focused on their technical skills. Additionally, BetterCloud engineers gain the benefit of selecting from two career paths when they consider their next career move.
If you are struggling to fill a certain position, then ask yourself if you are looking for a unicorn. Consider breaking that position out into two different roles that align more naturally with the career choices technologists make.
Doing West Coast Tech in the Southeast
By the way, BetterCloud is doing West Coast Tech right here in the Southeast! (Atlanta, Georgia)
- We process 2.5 billion events a day (and growing)
- We have strong test-driven development practices
- We have been using microservices for three years
- We are this close to synthesizing our entire production environment from scratch using Infrastructure-as-Code practices
- We have “pipelines-to-production,” where we deploy to production after code review without any human intervention after passing many automated checks within multiple environments
- We even have a team that focuses on developer productivity tools so that coding stays fun and not mired in “plumbing.”
We’ve been able to accomplish all of this because we have a great culture that values ownership and empowers people to try new things, like splitting a “unicorn” role into two different positions.
If any of this sounds interesting, we have open developer and architect positions on both our engineering and platform teams!
