Working under a bad tech lead can slow you down in your career, even if you are the most talented
Here’s what you should do if you're stuck with a bad tech lead:
Ineffective Tech Lead:
- downplays the contributions of their team
- creates deadlines without talking to the team
- views team members as a tool to build and code
- doesn’t trust their team members to do their jobs
- gives no space or opportunities for personal / skill development
Effective Tech lead:
- sets a clear vision and direction
- communicates with the team & sets realistic goals
- empowers you to make decisions and take ownership
- inspires and helps you achieve your career milestones
- always looks to add value by sharing their knowledge and coaching
I've always grown the most when I've worked with the latter.
But I also have experience working with the former.
If you are in a team with a bad tech lead, it’s tough, I understand.
Here’s what you can do:
➥don’t waste your energy worrying about them
➥focus on your growth and what you can do in the environment
➥focus and try to fill the gap your lead has created by their behaviors
➥talk to your manager and share how you're feeling rather than complain about the lead
➥try and understand why they are behaving the way they behave, what’s important for them
And the most important:
Don’t get sucked into this behavior and become like one!
You will face both types of people in your career:
Some will teach you how to do things, and others will teach you how not to do things!
Coding Projects:👇
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VazkxJ62UPB7OQhBE502
ENJOY LEARNING 👍👍
Here’s what you should do if you're stuck with a bad tech lead:
Ineffective Tech Lead:
- downplays the contributions of their team
- creates deadlines without talking to the team
- views team members as a tool to build and code
- doesn’t trust their team members to do their jobs
- gives no space or opportunities for personal / skill development
Effective Tech lead:
- sets a clear vision and direction
- communicates with the team & sets realistic goals
- empowers you to make decisions and take ownership
- inspires and helps you achieve your career milestones
- always looks to add value by sharing their knowledge and coaching
I've always grown the most when I've worked with the latter.
But I also have experience working with the former.
If you are in a team with a bad tech lead, it’s tough, I understand.
Here’s what you can do:
➥don’t waste your energy worrying about them
➥focus on your growth and what you can do in the environment
➥focus and try to fill the gap your lead has created by their behaviors
➥talk to your manager and share how you're feeling rather than complain about the lead
➥try and understand why they are behaving the way they behave, what’s important for them
And the most important:
Don’t get sucked into this behavior and become like one!
You will face both types of people in your career:
Some will teach you how to do things, and others will teach you how not to do things!
Coding Projects:👇
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VazkxJ62UPB7OQhBE502
ENJOY LEARNING 👍👍
👍4
If you're a software engineer in your 20s, beware of this habit, it can kill your growth faster than anything else.
► Fake learning.
It feels productive, but it's not.
Let me give you a great example:
You wake up fired up.
Open YouTube, start a system design video.
An hour goes by. You nod, you get it (or so you think).
You switch to a course on Spring Boot. Build a to-do app.
Then read a blog on Kafka. Scroll through a thread on Redis.
By evening, you feel like you’ve had a productive day.
But two weeks later?
You can’t recall a single implementation detail.
You haven’t written a line of code around those topics.
You just consumed, but never applied.
That’s fake learning.
It’s learning without doing.
It gives you the illusion of growth, while keeping you stuck.
📌 Here’s how to fix it:
Watch fewer tutorials. Build more things.
Learn with a goal: “I’ll use this to build X.”
After every video, write your own summary.
Recode it from scratch.
Start documenting what you really understood vs. what felt easy.
Real growth happens when you struggle.
When you break things. When you debug.
Passive learning is comfortable.
But discomfort is where the actual skills are built.
Your 20s are for laying that solid technical foundation.
Don’t waste them just “watching smart.”
Build. Ship. Reflect.
That’s how you grow.
Coding Projects:👇
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VazkxJ62UPB7OQhBE502
ENJOY LEARNING 👍👍
► Fake learning.
It feels productive, but it's not.
Let me give you a great example:
You wake up fired up.
Open YouTube, start a system design video.
An hour goes by. You nod, you get it (or so you think).
You switch to a course on Spring Boot. Build a to-do app.
Then read a blog on Kafka. Scroll through a thread on Redis.
By evening, you feel like you’ve had a productive day.
But two weeks later?
You can’t recall a single implementation detail.
You haven’t written a line of code around those topics.
You just consumed, but never applied.
That’s fake learning.
It’s learning without doing.
It gives you the illusion of growth, while keeping you stuck.
📌 Here’s how to fix it:
Watch fewer tutorials. Build more things.
Learn with a goal: “I’ll use this to build X.”
After every video, write your own summary.
Recode it from scratch.
Start documenting what you really understood vs. what felt easy.
Real growth happens when you struggle.
When you break things. When you debug.
Passive learning is comfortable.
But discomfort is where the actual skills are built.
Your 20s are for laying that solid technical foundation.
Don’t waste them just “watching smart.”
Build. Ship. Reflect.
That’s how you grow.
Coding Projects:👇
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VazkxJ62UPB7OQhBE502
ENJOY LEARNING 👍👍
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