Building High-Performing Technical Teams
Lessons learned from building and leading engineering teams, from startup to enterprise scale. Focus on culture, communication, and creating environments where people thrive.
After 15 years in technology—from individual contributor to Global Director—I’ve learned that the most impactful thing a leader can do is build environments where talented people can do their best work. Here’s what I’ve learned about building high-performing technical teams.
The Leadership Mindset Shift
The transition from individual contributor to leader is harder than most people realize. As an IC, your success is measured by your personal output. As a leader, success is measured by your team’s output—and you enable that by getting out of the way.
From Doer to Enabler
Early in my leadership journey, I made a classic mistake: I kept doing the most interesting technical work myself. This created bottlenecks and prevented my team from growing. The breakthrough came when I realized my job was to:
- Remove obstacles
- Provide context and clarity
- Create psychological safety
- Develop people’s skills
- Make decisions when needed
Building Trust
Trust is the foundation of high-performing teams. Without it, nothing else works.
Be Vulnerable
Leaders who admit mistakes and uncertainties build more trust than those who pretend to have all the answers. Some phrases I use regularly:
- “I don’t know, but let’s figure it out together”
- “I was wrong about that”
- “Help me understand your perspective”
Follow Through
Do what you say you’ll do. If you can’t, communicate early and explain why. Nothing destroys trust faster than broken commitments.
Have Their Backs
Defend your team publicly, provide feedback privately. When things go wrong, take responsibility. When things go right, give credit.
Creating Psychological Safety
Google’s Project Aristotle found that psychological safety—the belief that you won’t be punished for making mistakes—is the most important factor in team performance.
Encourage Questions
There are no stupid questions. The person brave enough to ask is often voicing what others are thinking.
Celebrate Learning from Failure
When projects fail, conduct blameless postmortems focused on learning, not punishment. Ask “how do we prevent this?” not “who do we blame?”
Model Vulnerability
Share your own mistakes and learning moments. This gives others permission to do the same.
Communication Principles
Default to Transparency
Share as much context as possible. People make better decisions when they understand the bigger picture. The only exceptions are truly confidential matters.
Over-communicate
You probably need to communicate important messages more times, in more ways, than you think. People are busy and distracted.
Listen More Than You Talk
As a leader, your words carry more weight. Create space for others to speak. Ask questions. Really listen to the answers.
Developing People
Your most important job is helping people grow.
Understand Individual Goals
Everyone has different aspirations. Some want to become architects, others want to lead teams, others want to specialize deeply. Help each person create a path to their goals.
Provide Stretch Opportunities
Growth happens at the edge of comfort zones. Give people challenging assignments with appropriate support.
Give Regular Feedback
Don’t save feedback for annual reviews. Provide specific, actionable feedback frequently. Both recognition and constructive criticism should be timely.
Invest in Learning
Create budget and time for training, conferences, and experimentation. The teams that learn fastest win.
Hiring and Team Composition
Hire for Potential
Skills can be taught; attitude and learning ability are harder to change. Look for curiosity, resilience, and collaboration.
Diversity Matters
Diverse teams make better decisions. Actively work to build teams with varied backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.
Take Hiring Seriously
A bad hire is incredibly expensive—not just in salary, but in team disruption and management overhead. Take your time and involve the team.
Practical Rituals
One-on-Ones
Weekly one-on-ones are non-negotiable. This is their time, not yours. Let them set the agenda. Listen for what’s not being said.
Team Retrospectives
Regular retrospectives help teams continuously improve. Focus on psychological safety so people speak honestly.
Skip Levels
As you grow, maintain connections with people beyond your direct reports. Skip-level meetings help you stay grounded.
Leading Through Change
Technology organizations face constant change—new technologies, reorganizations, strategy shifts. How you lead through change defines your effectiveness.
Acknowledge the Difficulty
Change is hard, even positive change. Don’t pretend otherwise. Acknowledge emotions and concerns.
Provide Stability Where You Can
When things feel chaotic, provide whatever stability you can. Maintain rituals, be consistent, be present.
Focus on What You Control
Help your team focus on their sphere of influence rather than worrying about things they can’t change.
The Long Game
Building a high-performing team takes time. Quick fixes don’t work. Invest consistently in culture, trust, and people development. The results compound over time.
Some of my proudest moments aren’t projects delivered—they’re seeing people I’ve mentored succeed, watching teams gel and become greater than the sum of their parts, and creating environments where people genuinely enjoy their work.
What leadership challenges are you facing? I’d love to connect and discuss—leadership is a lifelong learning journey, and I learn as much from others as I hope they learn from me.