If you told 25-year-old me that one day Iâd be managing a team of PHP developers, reviewing performance metrics, and negotiating deadlines with stakeholders, I probably wouldâve laughed and gone back to refactoring some poorly written legacy class. I didnât start my career with âleadershipâ in mindâmy focus was all about clean code, fast queries, and squeezing every ounce of performance from my scripts. But as with most senior devs, leadership found me.
Now that Iâm here, managing people instead of just code, Iâve learned a few tough lessons I wish I knew earlier.
1. Communication > Clever Code
Back then, I thought writing elegant, clever one-liners was peak engineering. What I didnât realize was how often that code confused other developersâand future me. As a leader, Iâve learned that readable, maintainable code isnât just niceâitâs essential for team velocity and collaboration.
More importantly, I learned that communicating expectations, tradeoffs, and context is more valuable than implementing the âbestâ technical solution in isolation.
2. People Donât Scale Like Code
In development, you can add a caching layer or horizontal scaling and see results fast. With people, itâs different. Some developers are quick learners. Some need structure. Some thrive on feedback, others on autonomy. Treating everyone the same just doesnât work.
One lesson I learned too late: your job as a leader is to understand each personâs motivators, blockers, and working styleâthen tailor your support accordingly.
3. Leadership Is About Multiplying Output, Not Just Delivering Work
As a dev, your value is tied to your output. As a leader, itâs not about what you do, but what your team can achieve. That shift was hard for me. I had to stop measuring myself by how much I was coding and start measuring by how unblocked, focused, and motivated my team was.
When I stopped jumping into PRs and instead spent more time helping people prioritize or pairing with junior devs, the team’s performance noticeably improved. Leadership isnât about writing less codeâitâs about writing code that enables others to write more.
4. Feedback Should Be Frequent and Unemotional
I used to avoid giving feedback because I didnât want to come off as critical. But silence is not kindnessâitâs confusion. I now give feedback early, often, and kindly. That includes positive feedback too! Telling someone âyou handled that bug triage really wellâ costs nothing and builds trust.
The trick? Detach the feedback from emotion and egoâyours and theirs.
5. Process MattersâBut So Does Trust
I went through a phase of trying to overprocess everythingâtask templates, sprint rituals, exhaustive documentation. Some of it helped. Most of it didnât. What Iâve realized is that a little structure and a lot of trust goes a long way. You donât need rigid rules if your team feels ownership and accountability.
6. You Still Need to LearnâJust Differently
When I stopped coding full-time, I worried Iâd fall behind. But leadership has its own learning curve. Now I read about team dynamics, org structure, motivation theory, and even psychology. I still tinker with side projects to keep my PHP skills sharp, but most of my professional growth now happens in one-on-ones and retros.
7. Your Energy Sets the Tone
This one surprised me. On days when I showed up tired, stressed, or distracted, the whole team felt off. When I was calm, focused, and upbeatâeven if things were toughâthe team leaned in. I didnât sign up to be a cheerleader, but as a leader, your mood is contagious.
Final Thoughts
The jump from PHP dev to leader wasnât linear or obvious. It involved growing out of my technical comfort zone and embracing ambiguity, people dynamics, and the responsibility of building a cultureânot just code. If youâre a PHP developer eyeing leadership or recently thrown into it like I was, know this:
You wonât be perfect. Youâll make mistakes. But if you lead with humility, empathy, and clarityâyouâll grow. And your team will, too.