Stages of the Business. The Role and Responsibilities of a Tech Leader

The exact set of responsibilities of tech leaders varies from company to company and from industry to industry. There are all kinds of tech leaders, ranging from architects who are barely communicating with subordinates to full-time talkers who are not even touching the code anymore.

However, there are four stages of the business that shape the key goals for tech leaders and establish some constraints for their responsibilities.

Stage 1 - Proving That Technology Can Be Built

At this stage, it is crucial to prove that the technology providing the tech foundations of the business is possible to build. Tech leaders at this stage are often engaged in hands-on activities and research. Engineering teams are small, and administrative work is minimal.

The key activities for leaders at this stage include researching, participating in all tech-related discussions, solving key tech challenges, communicating often with the business side, and ensuring that proposed solutions make sense for the market from both product and cost perspectives.

Management activities are very basic at this stage—it is required to plan and control the execution of tasks and to track documentation and solutions found within the R&D process.

Stage 2 - Proving That It’s Possible to Monetize Technology

At this stage, the core technology already exists, and it’s time to figure out the product-market fit. It’s crucial to spin up fast iterations and deliver the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) that can gain traction and generate the first revenues.

This will require some initial HR decisions—engineering teams should be scaled to ensure performance but not too much to avoid losing speed due to increased management overhead.

Leaders are responsible for ensuring the engineering culture in the new business, establishing fundamental tech and management concepts that will be used in the organization for the next few years.

Hiring plays a crucial role here. Right people with the right mindset can iterate quickly and cleanly, while the wrong people can bury your project. The ability to identify and hire engineers becomes essential for the business.

Stage 3 - Proving That Technology Can Scale

Once the product and technology gain enough traction, it’s time to prove that the business can generate substantial revenues with reasonable speed and at a reasonable cost. At this stage, tech leaders must ensure steady growth of the product, maintain its quality, ensure availability and SLAs, and manage the proper localization and deployment of the product in various markets.

More people are joining the team, and management becomes more time-consuming. It’s now time to form the tech leadership team and to coach your tech leaders.

Management and processes become (almost) full-time jobs at this stage.

The focus will be on quality, stability, safety, monitoring, and clear communication with product stakeholders.

Stage 4 - Ensuring Long-Term Success of the Business and Preparing for Another R&D Round

At this stage, the business has already conquered some big markets, and you have to deal with long-term survivability and further expansion. There will be more users, more database records, and more versions. The responsibilities of tech leaders become fully operational.

Leaders need to ensure smooth knowledge transitions between old team members and new ones. If the company is big enough, there will be whole generations of engineers, and that’s why knowledge transfer becomes essential.

It’s also important to preserve all the great foundations of engineering culture.

In the modern environment, all businesses have to evolve to stay profitable—the steady pressure of an evolving tech landscape, competition, and changing global and local markets. Therefore, you have to start figuring out new technologies that will be built within the business or that will provide the foundation for a completely new company.

On the Conceptual Level

As you can see, a growing business usually requires a shift from R&D and tech toward management and culture. Sometimes, tech leaders can adjust over time; sometimes, the business may require different tech leaders at different stages.

Leadership tasks can also be split between a team of tech leaders who are responsible for various areas.

Every option and action is possible if it does not violate the laws of physics.