The 80/20 Rule of Technical Leadership

No One Talks About This

Drew Houston wrote his first line of code at age 5.

By 24, he was coding every feature of Dropbox himself. Late nights in his dorm room. Every bug fix. Every new feature. Just him and the computer.

Today, Dropbox has 700 million users.

And Houston barely writes code anymore.

"I went from writing all the code myself to not coding at all."

This sounds like failure. But is it?

Most engineers don't get this. They think leadership means being the best coder who also does meetings.

So they try to code 80% of their time. Leadership gets the leftover 20%.

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This breaks everything

Here's why: The average developer spends only 52 minutes per day writing code. That's 13% of their workday.

The other 87%? Meetings. Code reviews. Fixing old stuff. Talking to people.

But when you become a tech lead, you're not just responsible for your 52 minutes anymore. You're responsible for your whole team's 52 minutes.

Five people times 52 minutes is 260 minutes of coding per day.

If you're still trying to code for 6 hours, you're ignoring 260 minutes of team productivity to focus on your own 52 minutes.

Now, this doesn't work everywhere.

• A two-person startup? You probably need to code 70% of your time.

• A team of junior developers? Maybe 60%.

But as your team grows and gets more experienced, the math shifts.

Great tech leads adjust the equation. They might start at 50/50. Then move to 60/40. Eventually land at 80/20 when their team is ready.

This feels wrong. You got promoted for being good at coding.
Now you barely code.

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But here's what actually happens

Your team writes better code. They make decisions faster. They don't wait for you.

One person coding perfectly is good. Five people coding well is better.

Houston learned this the hard way. "Building a company is never just done," he says. Unlike code, where you can solve a problem and walk away.

Your situation might be different.

• Maybe you have two junior developers who need you writing code beside them.

• Maybe you're at a startup where everyone codes.

• Maybe your team isn't ready for full autonomy yet.

But here's the question that matters: Are you coding because your team needs you to? Or because letting go feels scary?

You can keep being the star coder. Or you can become the reason five others shine.

One path gives you control.

The other creates impact.