What should your priorities be in your first 90 days as a new tech lead?

Question

Accepted Answer

Your first 90 days are about **building context and trust before changing anything**. New leads often rush to fix what they see; the better move is to understand the system, the team, and the history first. Earn the right to lead before you start steering.

## A simple plan

```text
DAYS 1-30  LISTEN & LEARN
  - Read the code, the docs, the incident history
  - 1:1 with every engineer: what's working, what's painful?
  - Understand who depends on you and who you depend on
  - Resist the urge to announce big changes

DAYS 31-60  CONTRIBUTE & DIAGNOSE
  - Ship something small to learn the workflow first-hand
  - Identify the top 2-3 real problems (not pet peeves)
  - Start improving process lightly (e.g. clearer code review)

DAYS 61-90  STEER
  - Set or clarify technical direction
  - Make a visible improvement the team feels
  - Establish how decisions get made
```

## A concrete example

You inherit a team with slow, flaky CI. Instead of rewriting the pipeline week one, you spend a month understanding *why* it's flaky, then propose a fix the team buys into, so it sticks.

## A pitfall

The "new sheriff" mistake: changing tools, standards, and architecture before understanding why things are the way they are. It burns trust fast.

## Why it matters

Trust is the currency of leadership without authority, and the first 90 days set the tone.

Move too fast and the team tunes you out; listen first and they'll follow you on the hard calls later.