Ask HN: Multiple “tech-lead-wannabe” team members?

In my team we have one tech lead and 2 senior software engineers (including myself). We all have many years of experience in the industry, but the only reason the tech lead is the tech lead is because he’s been in the company for 3+ years. The other two seniors have been there for less than a year.

Now, when it comes to architectural/design decisions we all have our opinions and more often than not we agree on them, but at the end of the day there is only one engineer who is actually the main driver of whatever solution we are implementing. That makes a lot of sense because our projects are not huge, but fit nicely in the head of one person. So, we do around 1 big “project” or “epic” every one or two months more or less. So far, roughly 60% of the time is the tech lead the driver (so he proposes a solution, the rest of the team agrees on because it’s a good enough solution, and it’s acknowledged by PMs and EMs that he’s the one who actually solved the problem. We all contribute to the implementation). The other 40% of the time, the other two seniors are the ones who provide and own the solution (roughly 20% each).

In this situation it’s impossible for the other two seniors to become tech lead. There’s just no space for it. Our current tech lead is not gonna quit nor become “Staff engineer” (the next step after Tech Lead) any time soon. If I want to become Staff I need to be Tech Lead first (that’s defined in our career path).

Seems like a dead-end. I think I can get raises without being promoted, but I’m not sure until when.