My best ever lead developer was not a manager. He was broadly experienced in all the technical things (many that I did not possess in good depth). And whenever I flashed a question to Slack or bumped a noise over the transom, he jumped out of his chair to explore the question, seek an answer and pursue an example. Our team flourished. In contrast, I once worked with a "chief of software" who rarely made eye contact because he was staring at his three (!) monitors and was unable to disconnect from his devices and other coincident dialogs long enough to "get" the nature of the question. That didn't go so well. #peoplefirst would be my hashtag. It's not for everyone but it's right for software developers who would level-up.
My best ever lead developer was not a manager. He was broadly experienced in all the technical things (many that I did not possess in good depth). And whenever I flashed a question to Slack or bumped a noise over the transom, he jumped out of his chair to explore the question, seek an answer and pursue an example. Our team flourished. In contrast, I once worked with a "chief of software" who rarely made eye contact because he was staring at his three (!) monitors and was unable to disconnect from his devices and other coincident dialogs long enough to "get" the nature of the question. That didn't go so well. #peoplefirst would be my hashtag. It's not for everyone but it's right for software developers who would level-up.
I've had similar experiences - totally agree.