Everyone likes growth in his or her professional career. In this competitive world, staying on top of latest trends and constant learning has become part of the life regardless of your position and role in the company. In IT industry after reaching certain level, most companies offer a choice to stay pure technical or participate in other business management activities. A technology lead and a business lead are two distinct functions in a typical IT company.

A tech lead inspires, enables, empowers and encourages his team members and focuses on effectiveness of his team. A technology lead is thus responsible for delivering a quality outcome from the intellectual as well as the technology skill sets of his team members and thus operates on emotional and spiritual resources of an organization.

Hence as a technical lead, a person has to work as a technology expert in an organization.
If you are interested in doing more than just being ‘techie,’ then management is a way to leverage and enhance your skills to contribute towards product planning. Domain knowledge usually helps business leads take better business decisions though he may not be hands-on as much as the technical lead. A business lead is more of a diplomatic portfolio than the technical, as he needs get the things done from the available time, money and technology of an organization. A business lead has to plan, organize and control the overall operation of business. A business lead is more communicative in nature and has to share his visions and goals in a better way than technical lead to achieve his business objectives.

A technology portfolio has its own advantages. An engineer who is more interested is sticking to his background, may not have an inclination to a business portfolio. Thus it’s the matter of choice and careful consideration to switch ladder though lot of companies allow people to switch back and forth these days.


Atul Goyal Senior Manager-EFI