Project Lead

"We consider it a success if a tool did the job at the time it was needed, and failure if delivery was too late."

— We Ship Experiences, Not Code

As a project lead, you have full ownership of your project. This is both a responsibility and an empowerment.

How You Become a Project Lead

You're the project lead if you're assigned as the Lead on a project in Linear. That's it. The assignment is the authority.

Ownership & Decision-Making

You have the final call on technical decisions for your project. You don't need to wait for approval on:

• Architecture choices
• Implementation approaches
• Technical trade-offs
• Tool and library selection

Trust your judgment. You're close to the code, the software, and the user interface. You understand what should happen.

Consult Early

Some decisions require early consultation to avoid rework and leverage existing patterns:

If your project involves...	Consult with...	Why
UX or UI work	UX Design	Ensure design consistency and get proper specs before implementation
Infrastructure changes	Infrastructure	Identify infra impact, existing patterns, and resources that can accelerate your project

Reach out at the start of your project, not when you're blocked. These conversations help you move faster, not slower.

Core Responsibilities

Deliver to Production

Your primary responsibility is to get your project all the way to production. This includes:

• Breaking down the work into manageable tasks
• Ensuring quality through automated checks, testing, and targeted review when risk calls for it
• Coordinating with other team members as needed
• Driving the project to completion

Remember: we ship experiences, not code. A tool that ships on time and does the job is a success. Code that's late or ships without purpose is not.

Communicate Status

Keep the team informed about your project's progress. Kitchen Communication means we overcommunicate—it's praised, not a cause for embarrassment.

• Update Linear weekly: Post project updates so the team has visibility into current status
• Use project channels: Communicate in shared channels rather than DMs—we don't silo information
• Flag blockers early: If something is bigger than expected or you're blocked, surface it immediately. We're in the best position to help the quicker we know about it.
• Clear ambiguity: If directions or requirements are unclear, make an educated decision and communicate that decision back out

See Project Updates for details on posting updates.

Ask for Help

You don't have to do everything alone. As Crewmates:

• Bring in teammates when you need support
• If your workload is unsustainable, speak up—time wasted is always worse than a bruised ego
• Feeling blocked by teammates should not be common. If it is, raise it.
• In an emergency, others can take over. Nothing should be blocked on a single person.

Support Your Teammates

When you have capacity:

• Be available to help others on their projects, especially when your work overlaps
• Respond to requests for help in a timely manner
• Share context and knowledge that might be useful to others

Build for Speed

Look for opportunities to accelerate delivery:

• Automate anything that requires repeated manual work or guidance
• Build or adopt tools that allow the team to deliver faster
• Bias toward outside tooling if it does the job, so we can focus on core differentiators
• Bias toward deprecating things that don't bring continued value

What This Means for Everyone

• Respect the lead's decisions. If someone is the project lead, their technical calls are the calls.
• Support the lead. If you see someone struggling, offer help. They might not ask (see Asking for Help).
• Be available. Leads will need to collaborate across the team. Be responsive when someone reaches out.

TL;DR

You're empowered. You're accountable. Ship it.