Masterclass for technical team leads.


The Principal Dev is a two-day certification masterclass for tech leads. Here you'll develop skills that every successful, effective, and trusted software development leader needs.


Join masterclass Learn more

Introduction

What distinguishes a software developer from a software team lead? As a team leader, you are now in charge of people, their performance, and motivation. Your output is the output of your team.

In this training, you'll learn what does it take to be an exceptional tech lead, how to develop yourself as a leader, and how to maintain balance between leadership and technical duties. In a practical, down-to-earth style, you'll learn how to:

Develop yourself as a technical lead

  • Balance technical and non-technical skills
  • Measure your progress as a leader
  • Gain trust and respect
  • Delegate effectively
  • Communicate with confidence
  • Influence others without resorting to issuing orders
  • Motivate people with DRIVE
  • Improve team's health
  • Reclaim time for coding

Build great teams

  • Design your teams using Team Topologies in mind
  • Learn the seven qualities of a high performance team
  • Measure your team's health and performance
  • Foster a continuous learning culture in your team
  • Understand the importance of mentoring
  • Learn the six effective mentoring tools
  • Understand and apply strategic pair programming
  • Help your teammates reach career heights
  • Don't fall into a "babysitter trap"

Improve development process

  • Learn to measure IT and team performance
  • Learn how Scrum, Kanban, and Lean fit together
  • Learn how to plan and deliver work always on time
  • Learn to prioritize and split work properly
  • Understand the power of Little's Law
  • Deliver value sooner with Continuous Delivery
  • Eliminate bottlenecks and wastes in your process
  • Keep technical debt under control
  • Deliver value, not just software features

Accelerate hiring

  • Don't hire like everybody else
  • Design an effective, no-bullshit hiring process
  • Ensure that only people who share your values apply
  • Learn to assess technical and soft skills
  • Scale hiring process through delegation and mentoring
  • Become an interviewer that wins minds and hearts
  • Turn every interviewee into your personal fan! : )
  • Attract, retain, and grow A-class engineers
  • Boost hiring effectiveness 5x. No kidding.

Frequently asked questions

For whom is this course?

The course is for experienced and motivated engineers who already know how to write good code and get things done and now want to make a bigger impact on the team and organization. Although it’s not a coding course, you’ll learn a lot about software engineering best practices, such as pair programming, code reviews, dealing with technical debt, and much more.

What are admission requirements for the course?

The content of the course requires a certain level of maturity. To create an effective learning environment, we invite motivated individuals with at least three years of commercial software development experience.

I have sufficient IT experience, but I am not a developer. Can I participate?

Because software development is an ultimate team sport, we welcome people with different backgrounds and perspectives – devs, engineering managers, agile coaches, product champions, SREs, QA engineers.

How is the learning process organized?

You will be working in small groups of like-minded people on different challenges, such as optimizing development processes, finding cost-effective solutions to problems, improving the interviewing process. We'll also address your current career, team, and company challenges.

Would I receive a certificate upon completing the course?

Yes, you will receive a verifiable certificate.

What is the language of instruction?

The course is taught in English. Non-native speakers are welcome.

What are the exact times / schedule of the course?

On both days, we start at 9:00 and work until 17:30. We'll have a 1-hour lunch break at ~12:00 and many 5-minute coffee breaks in between.

I want to participate, but I'm in a different time zone. Do you run courses in other timezones?

Although the course takes place only in two timezones – EU Central and US Central – typically, each group is a mixture of attendees from different countries, including caffeinated ones who join at night.

Attendees who can't survive the whole day for various reasons (family, timezone, etc.) get the course recordings so they can watch the missing parts later.

How would I develop my knowledge after the course?

You will receive a list of books, blogs, videos for self-development. After the masterclass, you'll stay connected with other alumni and Eduards via group chat. You'll make new connections who will support you throughout this course and beyond.

How do I convince my manager to send me to this course?

Tell it like it is: Coursera is for beginners, conferences are for fun, and you want to gain some superskills to take your career, team, and organization to the next level. After the course, you'll be motivated like never before and bring tons of inspiration back to the workplace. You'll also earn a verifiable certificate. If you dislike the course, you'll get your money back. No questions asked.

P.S. To make it easy to ask for company funding, download this template.

Have more questions?

Send an email to [email protected]

What people say?

"This is the best technical training I have ever attended. The amount of energy, inspiration, and wisdom I have taken away from this course is immeasurable. Very thought-provoking course!"

"Very inspiring masterclass. Your enthusiasm and passion reminded me of those very few teachers in my life, that actually tried to make a difference, not just "read the lesson". You gave a new perspective on how to approach leadership from a completely different angle, which actually makes a lot of sense and resonates with how I felt but couldn't put into words."

"What a workshop! Eduards is full of energy and this is evident in every single minute of the course. There was a great variety of techniques, perspectives, and information to digest. Be ready to fill your cups full of coffee – it will be 2 hectic days but believe me – you will capitalize on it in many ways."

"10x motivation booster! Now I have a much clearer vision of becoming a well-rounded tech lead, finding a balance between hard and soft skills, and how to boost my professional reputation in and outside the company."

"Just two days after the course, I analyzed our development process, discovered the limiting factor, and convinced my teammates to work on it. We fixed the problem and accelerated product delivery by at least 50%. Eduards is a true guru of development process optimization."

"This course is an eye-opener. Period."

"I am very impressed. I will make sure that every developer in my company has attended this course."

"Together with my team, we regularly attend Eduard's courses to get new insights and practical advice. This time was no exception. I've begun applying tips & tricks at work immediately. The team is also happy!"

"This masterclass is full of learnings and motivation. It helped me get a complete picture of becoming an exemplary leader. The course is well-structured and has helped me connect the dots. Highly recommended to everyone who is a leader or is on the journey toward leadership."

"Thank you Ed for shipping this impressive course in just 2 days. I recognized and learned so much. I saw, we are doing lot of things right, but still some additional miles to go."

"I have attended many courses in the past. So far, this is absolutely the best training course for a seasoned engineer on how to become an effective, top-level company leader. "

"Eduards is an excellent mentor. I am lucky to work with him because he helped me a lot to shape my professional career. This course is a mind-blowing summary of knowledge that every professional software engineer should have."

"Inspiring, practical, and energizing training course for tech leads. I took 20 pages of notes and introduced multiple improvements to our company's work. The course has already paid off! "

"A must-have for any software development lead. Perfectly balanced information will have an immediate impact on your career. Would recommend it to anyone aspiring to be a great tech lead."

"The Principal Dev masterclass is a real booster. You have an immediate feeling of being on the same page with Eduards. Highly recommended. The best investment is in yourself."

"A well-tailored course for those who want to grow as technical leaders. It's full of valuable material and real-world experience."

"I learned so much from Eduards; I feel backed by so much knowledge, inspiration, and energy to take back to my team and introduce effective changes. 100% recommend for any software engineer looking to level up their skills and become an exceptional leader."

"Thanks Ed for these two days. Lots of content to digest now. I’m pretty sure you’ve made an impact on the careers of everyone that was attending! Shoutout as well to everyone that shared their experiences and positively contributed to the outcome of this masterclass!"

"I am following Eduards for quite some time now, but this workshop really exceeded my expectations! I got inspired, more motivated, and learned a lot from you and the participants. Thank you so much! "

"These were two very intense days for me but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Really did not feel like two days at all. Thank you very much Ed, and also everybody who participated. I learned a lot from all of you and felt safe discussing things I usually am insecure about. I feel like I grew a lot already and can't wait to start using the things I have learned. "

"This was an amazing workshop, lots of inspiration and information. Also felt super dense in a way with all the conversations on Slack going on in parallel... almost felt like attending two classes at the same time ."

"Thanks Ed for wrecking my notepad 😄 So much inspiring stuff packed in there - time to reflect and revisit! And thanks to everyone for sharing your perspectives on Slack & in breakout rooms."

"Eduards has managed to explain some of the solutions to my real life problems so simply and effectively that I will send all of my teams to this masterclass. Everyone who wants to get further in their career as an engineering lead should attend."

"Mandatory course for all our colleagues and new hires, regardless of the role and experience – from juniors to CTO."

"Thank you so much! You gave us some amazing guard rails to follow to become better (engineers). One could also call it cheating :smile: Reading all the smart books for us, and more importantly distilling some pretty damn useful information and then sharing it. It was amazing. Great work! "

"Really appreciate the quality of the material and the energy that was brought to us. Thank you very much! "

"Thanks Eduards! It was great 👏 I learned a lot. BTW I am still wondering how much energy you can have, even though the current time in Bali is 00:34 😄 "

"Amazing 2 days, a lot of learnings, insights, motivation and goals. Thanks a lot Ed and everybody else on the course for this experience!"

"Thank you for sharing your knowledge, Ed! Amazing content and lots of practical observations. You exposed several weaknesses in my leadership style. Congratulations! :-) Well-spent 2 days."

"I highly recommend this masterclass to all Tech Leads. It was very insightful, inspirational, and with lots of learnings. I was very proud to see that our company's focus is on the right places (customer needs, empowering people, agile processes, T-shaped profile, TDD, pair programming, etc.) I look forward to sharing the learnings with my teammates and experimenting with some ideas to continue strengthening our team culture. Thanks, Eduards! Great masterclass, well done! ."

"What an amazing class. Thanks for teaching us how to be better seniors / leads for these two days and generate more value to the customers. One of the quotes that will most definitely stick with me is: "Leadership and improvement is not about big things, it's about small things every day". So, let's go improve :)"

"I thoroughly enjoyed the course. It's full of practical, innovative, out-of-the-box tips to make your professional life more fulfilling. But it's not only that – the energy and professional ethics Eduards demonstrated are beyond any expectations. This masterclass has reignited the craftsmanship spark in me. Now I love my job even more. Thank you!."

"It was hugely insightful, and I’ve only just started to digest all the notes and insights I made over the two days! I’m looking forward to discussing with my team and applying what we’ve all learned to better our team working, mentoring, and hiring."

Upcoming Masterclass

The price will increase as the training approaches. Enroll today.

€999 ($1099)

  • Superskills
  • Certificate
  • 10% discount for 2+ people groups


Register

€999 ($1099)

  • Superskills
  • Certificate
  • 10% discount for 2+ people groups


Register

€999 ($1099)

  • Superskills
  • Certificate
  • 10% discount for 2+ people groups


Register

€999 ($1099)

  • Superskills
  • Certificate
  • 10% discount for 2+ people groups


Register

Eduards Sizovs

Consultant, Speaker, Trainer, ex-CTO       

Eduards has been involved in commercial software development for over 15 years. He quickly grew from a developer to architect, from architect to software engineering manager, from manager to IT director. Today, Eduards is training senior developers, architects and engineering leaders.

Eduards leads DevTernity – the top tech conference in Europe, and is the founder of a startup DevTube (#1 Hackernews, #3 ProductHunt). He is a well-known international speaker, who had spoken at the largest conferences Worldwide. Eduards is a certified enterprise architect, CSM, CSPO and ICF coach.


There are over 25 million developers worldwide and this figure is expected to rise to 100 million in 2030. My goal is to equip you with skills that will set you apart from competitors. See you at the masterclass!

Eduards Signature