How to Keep a Team Engaged on Long-Term Bets as a Tech Lead
Building Blocks of Leading a Multi-Year Project as a Tech Lead
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Back to our main topic,
There’s something uniquely challenging about long-term projects
They test patience, focus, and your ability to lead people through ambiguity
The first few months are exciting - new ideas, big goals, plenty of energy.
Then the middle phase hits. The “messy phase”
Deadlines stretch. Priorities change. The results aren’t visible yet
That’s when most teams lose momentum and most leaders lose their teams.
Over the past few years, I’ve led and contributed to multiple long-term bets. Some took over two years before showing a visible impact.
What I’ve learned is this:
The hardest part isn’t technical execution.
It’s keeping people motivated long enough to see the impact of their work.
I am sharing my learnings and what’s helped me keep my teams engaged through the long haul.
1. Show visible progress early and often
When a project drags on for months (or years), progress starts to feel invisible.
And invisible work slowly kills motivation.
I once led a foundational infrastructure project that didn’t directly impact any end user for almost 9 months
The team was working hard, but from the outside, it looked like we were doing nothing
Even internally, some engineers started doubting whether we were moving fast enough.
That’s when I realized, visibility matters as much as progress.
Now I make it a point to share updates early and often:
Short internal demos every few weeks, even if they’re rough.
Metrics dashboards that show tangible improvements (performance, build time, error rates).
Side-by-side comparisons: “Here’s what it looked like before. Here’s how it looks now.”
People stay motivated when they can see that their work is moving the needle, even in small ways.
2. Keep reminding the team why it matters
Long-term projects lose steam when the why gets blurry.
If people don’t remember why the project exists, every tough sprint feels meaningless.
During one project, we kept saying our goal was to “modernize our infrastructure platform.”
That sounded abstract, and nobody felt connected to it.
So we reframed it:
“Our mission is to reduce the onboarding time of a new application from 2 months to 2 weeks.”
Suddenly, every improvement felt purposeful.
When you fix a deployment script, you’re setting up for a faster future.
That’s a lot more motivating than “infrastructure modernization.”
Every planning cycle, remind the team of the original why.
I’ll often ask:
If we succeed, who benefits and how will their life get easier?
It brings perspective back when things get messy
3. Celebrate micro-wins (and do it loudly)
Long-term projects can go months without a public launch or visible milestone.
If you wait until the end to celebrate, you’ll burn out the team along the way.
I learned to celebrate tiny wins.
In one team, we had a Friday ritual called “Tiny Wins.”
Everyone shared one small thing they were proud of - shipping a migration, fixing a flaky test, or simplifying a process.
At first, it felt silly. But over time, it became our favorite part of the week.
Those small acknowledgments created momentum.
They reminded everyone that progress was happening, even when the big milestone was still far away.
It’s amazing how much energy you can create just by saying,
“Hey, that thing you fixed? It really made a difference.”
4. Refresh ownership regularly
In multi-year projects, people naturally lose energy after a while.
Even your best engineers hit a point where things start to feel repetitive.
One mistake I used to make: keeping the same people on the same part of the system for too long.
They became subject-matter experts, yes, but also stuck in a loop.
Now, every 6–9 months, you can experiment with rotating ownership areas.
It could be switching who owns the deployment pipeline, who leads planning, or who reviews designs.
This simple refresh keeps the project dynamic.
It also helps build redundancy; no single person becomes a bottleneck or the “only one who knows how it works.”
Giving people a chance to take on new challenges keeps engagement high.
It also signals trust
5. Maintain a live decision log
If there’s one silent killer of motivation, it’s repeating old debates.
Nothing frustrates engineers more than re-litigating a decision made six months ago because nobody remembers why it was made.
I’ve seen this happen again and again. A new engineer joins, questions a past choice, and we spend hours re-discussing things that were already settled, just because the context was lost.
Now, I maintain a living decision log.
It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just a simple shared doc with:
What decision did we make
Why we made it
Who was involved
Date and related context
It sounds small, but it keeps everyone aligned and saves a ton of energy.
6. Manage the feeling of progress
There’s “actual progress,” and then there’s “felt progress.”
They’re not the same.
You can be shipping meaningful backend changes, but if the team doesn’t feel like you’re moving forward, morale drops.
I focus a lot on how we talk about progress.
Instead of saying “We completed Phase 2 of the migration,” I’ll say:
“We just reduced deployment times by 40%.”
One is technical.
The other is human; it tells a story of impact.
Translate your work into a language that makes people proud.
It’s a small leadership trick that goes a long way in keeping teams motivated.
7. Balance “builders” and “believers”
Every long-term project needs both:
Builders: the deep thinkers who love solving hard technical problems.
Believers: the optimists who keep reminding everyone of the bigger picture.
If your team is all builders, morale dips when ambiguity hits.
If it’s all believers, execution slows down.
You need both.
I’ve learned to pair people intentionally, one who’s energized by vision, another who thrives on execution.
When one side starts doubting, the other balances it out.
As a lead, your role is to play connector between those two people
Keep the believers grounded and the builders inspired
Final Thoughts
Long-term projects are not just about technical depth; they’re about emotional endurance.
You’ll have moments where it feels like nothing’s moving.
You’ll lose people, priorities will shift, and the goalpost will move.
But if you can keep your team motivated through those quiet, uncertain stretches, you’ll not only ship something meaningful,
you’ll grow as a leader.
Because leading through the messy phase is where real leadership shows up.
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