by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2006/08/29 03:51 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2006/08/29/729504.aspx
So when Bryan asked me the other day whether a Technical Aide was someone who reported to a Technical Lead, I had to smile.
It is not like the titles, which aim for consistency, really meet their goals.
A Software Development Enginner reports to a Development Lead who reports to a Development Manager.
And a Software Test Engineer reports to a Software Development Enginner in Test who reports to a Test Lead who reports to a Test Manager. Which is kind of consistent, too.
But then does a Program Manager report to a Program Manager Lead who reports to a Program Manager Manager?
No, a Program Manager reports to a Lead Program Manager who reports to a Group Program Manager.
Then all three of those managers may report to a Group Manager who may report to a Product Unit Manager may report to a Director who may report to a General Manager who may report to a Corporate Vice President who may report to a Vice President (or vice versa), and so on.
Consistency is not our weakness here.
Now I talked about a Technical Lead a bit in this post, but I can add to that the fact that a Technical Aide does not report to a Technical Lead.
A Technical Aide is kind of like the Microoft version of a Lord Privy Seal or a Minister Without Portfolio. They would usually report to someone really important like a CTO or a VP.... which of course I am not.
Maybe a Technical Lead could report to a Technical Aide, though usually not.
So Bryan, does that answer your question? :-)