On Reddit.com recently, it was asked what kinds of things someone would need to know if trying to move from being a senior developer to a lead developer in their role. There's lots of answers - some serious, some not - but it's an interesting read.

I'm fairly confident that I am able to move into a lead developer role quite easily. I have worked in many places where the CTO was so incompetent that I've ended up doing a CTO's job as well as coding. Now I want to find a job where I can be a good lead developer. I might have some holes in my self-taught PHP knowledge, so what do you think I should know?

Some of the recommendations include:

• "The lead engineer is not the smartest guy in the room. Sometimes you will know the right answer, but just telling people what to do won't always get the right results. Ask them how to solve problems and let them own it."
• "It may be different where you are but I expect lead developers to be more of a 'lead' as in 'leader' than 'lead' as in 'best developer'. That is, you'll probably be expected to actually manage, delegate, and architect on top of your development abilities."
• "The lead dev will guarantee the whole architecture of the application and the processes of development."
• "If you, as a lead dev, are project managing then your employer is doing it VERY wrong."

Check out the full post for more discussion and to add your own thoughts.