Great article. There is an increasing demand for project management on development but at the same time, too few developers make the switch. As a result, more and more folks are getting technical. The biggest issue I've seen is the lack of control over the development team as a non-technical guy. A lot of entrepreneurs and managers don't know if they're getting their money' worth. Since I've been facing this issue myself along with a good number of entrepreneurs I encountered, I started working on a product to give more clarity. We're still battling with some tweaks here and there but would love some feedback from non-technical guys to further improve it. Feel free to check it out --> https://waydev.co/ and of course, reply here or grab me by email for any feedback or discussions ([email protected])

OP here: I wrote this post to shed some light on everything I've learned about managing remote developer teams when you're nontechnical (as in you don't write usable code for your product).

I also wrote this to shed light on how we build product at The Lobby, in hopes that it will attract the candidate we're looking for to lead our engineering efforts in NYC.

Happy to answer questions or discuss anything here!

Just so you know, in case you want to fix it, a second after the article renders, it moves down such that I have to scroll down to half the scrollbar to see the beginning. That's some 9 or 10 screenfuls.

Hi! The publisher is here. Tried to re-produce this bug, but couldn't. Can you give me more details on your browser and OS please?

Browser is Firefox 61.0; OS is Archlinux.

    https://s8.postimg.cc/4tz02ffxh/site-top.png
    https://s8.postimg.cc/whbpgkbet/site-4-screenfuls-down.png
    https://s8.postimg.cc/qge0jiz39/site-article-start.png

Note the scrollbar.

EDIT: Just tried with chromium 67.0.3396.87. Same thing happens.

    https://s8.postimg.cc/4wivoy6mt/chromium-top.png
    https://s8.postimg.cc/v4u0ebyg5/chromium-article-start.png

EDIT 2: I noticed the image service down-scaled the images. The size of the windows is 956x979 pixels, if you're interested.

Thanks! Will ask my colleagues at YouTeam to fix this!

That wording is gold.

Great advice. After having worked with a remote team that insisted on doing everything using waterfall, for months at a time before sharing any code/demos, I would never ever do that again. OP's advice about working in short sprints is spot-on.

glad it resonates, painful stuff using waterfall at this stage

Naive question, isn't it better for a technical person to lead a dev team ?

Probably, but not everyone has the luxury of a great tech person to lead their remote tech team.

Also, if it’s a field where the nontechnical person has some level of domain expertise, they arguably have a better sense of product direction, even if they’re lacking product dev mechanics.

I hope this post helps them get those mechanics!

Microsoft believed that from its inception.

Hey Deepak, this is really well written and has some great points! Keep it up.

Thanks!!

Fantastically actionable advice! Love the manual idea testing and leadership tips

Glad you like it + appreciate the kind words.

Great article.I needed this right now. Coming from a non technical background also this was really helpful.

Glad it helps!

Great post. Will be forwarding this to all my non-technical founders.

Glad it’s useful!