Over a decade ago now I got my first team lead role. It was a reasonably unexpected promotion when the existing team lead left shortly after I joined. This baptism of fire introduced me to line management, but also made me question my career choice. But it was, in hindsight, the beginning of a new journey:  becoming a software craftsman.

With barely 5 years’ experience, I was certainly no senior developer. And yet, here I had been thrust, into a team lead role. With so little experience I made many, many mistakes and was probably a pretty rubbish boss for the three other guys on the team. I tried my best. But the whole process was very draining. But worse, I started to see programming at a more abstract level. In charge of a team, I could see that all we were was a factory for turning requirements into working code. The entire process began to feel like turning a handle: feed the team requirements, some praise and a little coffee, and out comes working code.

Source: DZone