On the Edge of Leader­ship a talk by Mislav Cimper­šak

How to lead a dev team with zero personal experience in people management while still having no idea how to manage even your own time?

After several years of fairly regular software developer career path, I’ve found myself in a new role that I’ve unintentionally put myself into. Being a solid senior developer, management at the time agreed that I am a good candidate for a team lead. I was promoted, but I had no idea what to do in my new role. I felt lost and confused, but made a pact with myself to see this one through to the end. And so it came that for the past few years, I’ve been a development team lead for several teams.

With zero formal training, relying on my intuition and various random pieces of advice I picked up from people smarter than me, I’ve more or less successfully lead my teams to their goals. On that path, I’ve learned tremendously, improved myself and hopefully, my teams. I’ve would like to share what worked and what didn’t, my emotions, my regrets, and my wins.