Your Tech Lead just resigned and no one else understands half the backlog

What would you do?

It’s a peaceful week. Everything seems to be going well. Actually your team is on track to complete work committed for this sprint.

But then your Tech Lead pings you:

Hey, have you got a few minutes for a chat?

He just got an offer from another company that you know would be silly not to accept.

At the same time, they’re the one who built most of the system. The only one who really gets how the current architecture works. The one who everyone turns to when the build breaks.

It was all developed in a rush, with the rest of the team being quite junior in their career.

So now it’s only natural that you’re worried.

You’ve got deadlines to meet, your backlog is a mess, a system that no one fully understands, little to no documentation about anything and only a month until their last day.

What do you do?

Outline

- 🔒 What are your options?
- 🔒 Breaking down each approach
- 🔒 What I would do in this situation
- 🔒 How the decision can backfire and what to do about it
- 🔒 Takeaways
- 🔒 Some useful links from me

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