Tech Lead
A tech lead (also called an engineering lead) is the engineer who represents the engineering perspective in a product trio, participating in both discovery and delivery alongside a product manager and designer.
The tech lead is not necessarily a manager or someone who supervises other engineers. Rather, they are typically the most senior engineer on the team or an engineer who takes on the responsibility of leading discovery work. They bring depth of knowledge about what's possible with technology and help ensure technical feasibility is considered throughout the product development process.
What is the tech lead's role in discovery?
Tech leads participate in discovery activities from beginning to end. They interview customers together with the rest of the trio, map opportunities together, generate solutions together, and test assumptions together.
This matters because engineers bring unique knowledge, expertise, and experiences to discovery. During customer interviews, tech leads select different data based on their technical domain expertise, leading to different insights than product managers or designers would draw on their own. When it comes to generating solutions, engineers often come up with the best ideas because they understand what's possible with technology. But the best solutions require understanding both what's possible with technology and what customers need—which is why tech leads need to participate in discovery to build up depth of knowledge about customer context.
What are key principles for tech leads in product trios?
The tech lead doesn't have to be a permanent role. Some teams rotate engineers in and out of the tech lead position every quarter or two. This allows more engineers to develop discovery skills without feeling like they're sacrificing their technical career growth.
When tech leads participate in discovery, they can answer their own questions about what to build. This frees up the product manager and allows the team to move faster. Rather than having the product manager as the single source of truth during delivery, the tech lead becomes equally equipped to answer questions about requirements, make trade-offs based on customer context, and guide the team's work.
Why does having a tech lead in the product trio work?
Having a tech lead participate in the product trio balances speed of decision-making with quality of decision-making. Three people can move fast together while bringing diverse viewpoints—representing product, design, and technical perspectives—to every decision.
Tech leads bring valuable skills to discovery beyond just technical knowledge. They tend to be strong analytical thinkers who can help design and interpret experiments. They're often good at asking disconfirming questions and identifying assumptions that need testing. And when prototyping requires real code or real data, having a tech lead involved means the team can build what they need to learn without having to prioritize throwaway code against production features.
Learn more:
- Why Engineers Should Participate in Discovery
- Ask Teresa: Does the Engineer in the Product Trio Need to be the Tech Lead?
- Why Ramsey Solutions Rotates Engineers in Their Product Trios
Related terms:
- Product Trio
- Engineering
- Continuous Discovery
- Design
Last Updated: October 25, 2025