Feature Owner Role in a Tech Company
The main support for a Tech Lead
The Tech Lead role usually acts as an icebreaker when a new feature or project comes from the Product side. When the company needs to speed up, the Product team is able to kick off different features and products which should be analyzed and managed at the technical level. There are occasions on which it’s beneficial to have a “second Tech Lead role”.
Let me introduce the role of the Feature Owner. In today’s issue, I will cover:
When is this role needed?
Main responsibilities
Benefits the role brings
When is this role needed?
First off, this is a role that emerges periodically. Based on my experience, it's not a permanent role within the team.
I could see possible 3 signals that tell me there is a need for a Feature Owner. Any of them raising, means we need a Feature Owner.
One common signal that arises is an overloaded roadmap with too many features. At times, the influx of features slated for the roadmap exceeds the capacity of a single Tech Lead to design and manage. In such cases, it becomes necessary to delegate the responsibility of leading a feature to a team member. Otherwise, the Tech Lead may become a bottleneck for both the team and the organization.
Willingness from a team member. Sometimes it happens (and I'm very pleased about it) that a member of my team says to me, “Hey, Marcos, what do you think if I take ownership of this new feature that our PM just explained will be coming?”.
Specialized skills. Occasionally, there's a team member who, due to their career path, desires to specialize in a particular topic or technology.
As you can see, 2 out of 3 are signals related to the career growth of the members.
Main responsibilities
In a nutshell, the feature owner serves as a facilitator and as a lead to ensure that a feature is well-defined, properly developed, and seamlessly integrated into the product. To achieve this, she/he works closely with the Product Manager (PM), Tech Lead (TL), Engineering Manager (EM), team members developing the feature, and other impacted teams. It’s the person accountable for the feature from the technical point of view.
The specific responsibilities are detailed in the section below:
Work with PM to design specifications/requirements, so the feature owner will be in a position to lead a refinement session for the team.
Use the Tech Lead as a tool, to validate, brainstorm, and get feedback, at any time.
Design the solution at the technical level.
Create a technical roadmap, with a high-level estimation of the effort it would take for the team to implement the different parts of the solution.
Identify dependencies, and tackle them as soon as possible.
Work on the test plan, based on the specs from PM, in collaboration with the QA role if any.
Lead the refinement session/s happening with the team.
Be the point of contact with third parties and/or dependencies.
Ensure the quality of the feature and the success of the production release.
This is my vision of the role and, as usual, it can (should) have variations by teams and company. Use it as a reference from the real world.
Benefits of the role
I’m used to have this role in my teams and I always see important benefits.
First, I would highlight the growth of the team member acting as Feature Owner. This role is a great opportunity for team members who want to grow in their careers to more senior or leadership roles. When a team member performs this role for the first time you have to ensure she/he understands the role and the expectations, so are helping with the success. If you are a Software Engineer seeking new opportunities, I would encourage you to try this role in your team.
Related to the previous point, when a new feature or project related to a specific topic or technology arises, it presents a great opportunity for a team member who wants to specialize, get exposure, continue advancing in her/his specialized area, and potentially become the go-to person for that.
Another benefit I see is that your team scales up. The fact of having a feature owner means she/he will have less time to code. Because of that, you might think it will slow down the velocity of the team. Quite the opposite. First, the Feature Team will work with the PM, ending the “first phase” with a high-level estimation that will help the PM to decide the priorities. But we have to see that, when a Feature Owner takes a feature, it does not mean that it will be automatically to the implementation phase, or just doing that without anything else. The real world says that the team will work in parallel with other priorities.
Final Words
This is a role that I’m used to have in my teams. It’s a true support to me and the teams. I saw people growing thanks to this role, from Software Engineer to an actual Tech Lead. The feedback I got from the Product team is that it really helps to scale up the team.
Did you know this role already? What was your experience? I would love to hear from you about what you think about it, your experiences with this role in your teams, or your experience acting as a Feature Owner. Write down a comment or reply to this email!
Best,
Marcos.