Is It Worth Becoming a Team Lead?

Let's think it through: is it worth becoming a team lead?

👾 It's not uncommon for a specialist to switch from a team lead role back to being an individual-contributor engineer. And there are reasons for that. But let's start with the upsides.

➕Pros of being a team lead:

1. A leadership role means less hands-on work and more organizational work. Some people prefer that and enjoy it more
2. A bump in pay, even if a modest one
3. Sometimes you get the chance to build a team according to your own preferences, but again, not always — sometimes you join a team that already exists
4. You have more leverage and can build the infrastructure the way you prefer

➖Cons of being a team lead:

1. Very often you have to combine leadership work with hands-on work, which requires a certain skill
2. The pay bump may not cover the increased workload and responsibility — as a rule, that's exactly the case
3. If the hands-on work is fully delegated to team members, a loss of hard skills is inevitable
4. It follows from point 3 that the team lead position can become a dead end: on one hand you've lost (even if only temporarily) your hands-on skills, but climbing to a higher position (CTO, for example) is far from always feasible
5. It follows from point 4 that you can end up in a vendor-lock situation — that is, dependent on working at a single company, which is very bad

That's exactly why moving into team leadership and back out again is a good practice for those who simply find being a senior boring =)