I am lead engineer. I get screwed cause I have an engineer in my team that doesnt communicate often and does things on his own.
My manager complains to me.

How can I justify going forward?


I am looking for some guidance.

This is where you'll prove yourself as the tech lead.

You can't expect your team to do exactly as told, and that everything will fall nicely in your lap. Every team has this problem, and more, so as tech lead you have to figure out how to build the line of communication with this engineer.

Since you're the lead, your manager will be expecting answers from you. They don't see the nitty gritties in your team, and frankly they don't care. The job has been delegated to you. It's your responsibility to ask the hard questions and manage this engineer now.

Also remember you need to manage up as much as you manage down. Make your manager aware of your situation. Give updates on what you plan to do, and how it's going. You want to show them that you're on top of it, instead of them finding out when things go to heck.

Being a lead doesn't mean you can control another engineer's actions. You're responsible for setting expectations, communicating, documenting issues, and escalating when needed. If someone repeatedly ignores direction or works independently despite coaching, that becomes a management issue—not a leadership failure. Accountability goes both ways.
Or, if you want something shorter:
A lead should mentor and guide the team, absolutely. But a lead can't force someone to communicate or follow direction. My job is to set expectations, coach, document issues, and escalate when necessary. At some point, it becomes a performance issue that management needs to address.
That response acknowledges the responsibility of being a lead while making the point that leadership has limits when someone consistently chooses not to cooperate.

This is something i struggled with in my first management position as well. i had a technician that was not able to keep pace with our expectations.
having been only in hostile work environments prior to this job, my first step was to inform my manager. they simply told me to figure it out. i immediately ended up asking to terminate their employment. however, that was not allowed, no matter how much their actions slowed down productivity.
After a few months of managing, i stared to realize, i did not have the backing of the higher ups, and they wanted me to fix the workflow utilizing the tools i had at my disposal.
I spoke to the worker, informed them that the way they were operating is creating more problems than they were solving, and that i wanted to work with them to figure out a way to utilized them properly. Over time we came to settling on specific tasks they were better suited for, and though they were not operating the way we expected techs to, having them work in a paperwork section, moved things along smoothly. they did the paper work for all of our techs, and handled customer support, freeing up the other technicians to fly through their repairs.

In your case, I now see an engineer who likes to take initiative, and has confidence in their skills to move forward. if they are not making mistakes, and things are working well, then you dont need to worry about them. its not a problem, but a load off your plate.

Instead of trying to reign them in, establish a streamlined reporting schedule that lets them fill you in on their actions, and plans going forward. meanwhile breading an environment that they feel comfortable coming to you with their success as well as their failure. if they fail, then you need to nurture them.

This is the duty of leadership

Remember most engineers is autistic, they can't communicate, most architects is dyslexic... That give them the creativity

I have "quiet" engineers on my team as well. They are extremely introverted and shy. Being left alone is a safe place for them. They rely on internal dialogs instead of external stimuli, therefore their outputs appear to be "their own things".

What I did to bring them out of their "cocoons" and become more open to exchange ideas:
- Mandate camera ON in video calls (if your team is remote). This brings the team closer, and they naturally fall into small talks at the beginning -- sort of breaking the barrier a bit.
- Hold twice-a-week all member JAM sessions where the team talks about pull requests, buy-in's on how to implement something, FYI's to avoid conflicts, shareable tips, Claude skills, other cool things.
- In bi-weekly 1-on-1 meetings, I intentionally point out what I want to help them grow in the area of communication and team engagement. I tell them explicitly that I will call them out and solicit ideas from them more often, and they should expect that, or they can simply open up proactively to talk about their work. But I'll also listen to any reason why they might have fear to speak up, and offer training opportunities.
- In meetings, I make sure that I verbally praise them for presenting questions or ideas -- further reducing their anxieties and barriers. If they're not doing something right, just take it offline on 1-on-1, never scold in public.
- Eventually, tie all their improvements in the performance review.

There have been tough situations where I had to let some people go, despite of all efforts mentioned above. But remember to help them first, especially give them a different perspective on how they can build trust with others.

Hope this helps.

Isn’t your role as a lead to guide and mentor your team ? Don’t be a lead if you don’t want to be accountable for the team

Ask for a daily report of everything he does, and any outstanding issues. Make sure you tell him to use the approved vendors list for all purchases.

I've been a technical lead before and I hated it. I was put in that position because of my solutions architect level of knowledge and experience. I love doing the technical work but HATE the baby sitting. I had an entry level recent college grad as a member on my team that was coming in every day talking about AI and google are all he needed to be just as good as anyone mid-level to senior. He would find scripts/etc on reddit, stackoverflow, spiceworks, etc and try them on production without asking and constantly breaking things. When I pulled him aside to get him to stop, he made a big fuss about it with telling everyone he was being held back by me. All the while he was also coming in every day telling everyone he couldn't believe he was ONLY making $115k on his first tech job because he has a masters degree (no certs no experience) and deserved $160k or more a year. I decided to move to a solutions architect only role without the team lead part in another part of the program. Well his cousin who works at AWS eventually got him a job with AWS. Now he frequently calls back to our management to try to come back because he claims folks at AWS are too mean to him and it's too competitive... but yeah.... being a tech lead = BABYSITTING while being required to do your own technical work lol

Honestly, you're not acting as a lead engineer. If you're not managing those aspects of the team, you're acting as an IC with the team lead title. I don't know what you are or aren't doing, but here are some specifics that are best practice. I assume that you're having 1:1s and daily standups. You should be asking the questions that make up the gap in communication. You know what the failings are. Ask specific questions to surface what they are doing, what the concerns are that they have, and how they plan to overcome those challenges. I would assume that you're coaching. Coaching is pushing them in the right direction for success, but also laying out the path for what happens when they do not choose to follow the prescribed course of action. Accountability for one's actions is a standard, not a suggestion. You need to be clear about the failings. Document them and the actions that you've taken. Write out a plan of action for them. Get them to acknowledge that they've received and understand the plan. Time box it. Have observable outcomes defined. Have check-ins and milestones defined. Avoiding conflict here is not your friend because at this point, their failures are now yours. Not telling them what they're doing wrong is not a kindness and you aren't doing them a favor. If someone isn't following the team contracts and planning, that is your problem as lead. You need to PIP them or you'll get PIPed yourself. Which do you prefer?

I assume as a lead engineer you don’t line manage this engineer.. that they have an engineering manager that line manages them.

Have a chat.
Explain the concern/problem and opportunity
Explain the impact
Seek their support for proposed solutions and listen to any feedback they have

Let your manager know what you understand the issue is, what you propose to do/try and seek their support or feedback as well.

You might find theres 2 sides here, so consider the opportunity to adjust your approach as much as the engineer.

Eg how are you being clear in your expectations?
are you aligned ? What do they disagree with?

Your manager needs to guide you not just complain. You have to set up more guardrails for the independent engineer. They also need guidance so they can understand where they went off track. Be sure you are thinking about this as a problem to solve and not as a person who is derailing things. If after discussing with the engineer and establishing guardrails they are still doing poor work, have a longer conversation with your manager abo the possibility that this engineer is not a good fit.

You can require good description on the commits and PR, if this is not provided then the PR does not move forward. Then you can query git and get a report and what he is doing, do the same connecting work items with the PR.

As Lead that's the job. I perfer not be lead but unfortunately I always pushed in lead the position. And that's just the role talk to Engineer make sure he understands his actions is reflecting bad on the team and give him some guidance. Make sure its documented so you able to explain what was talked about. At the end of the day your responsible for guidance only.

What sort of things does he "do on his own"?

As lead you are responsible for technical guidance and standards adherence from the team; technical excellence. Are you also responsible for work assignments and project timelines?

Elaborate, I suppose he doesn't do his job well?

Autonomy is earned. The problem engineer has lost that gift and now gets to become your project and meet with you more often. "I need you to layout what you have worked on and where you are going" Sit and wait for an answer, even if it is awkward. Don't let more than a few days go by without answers. If they don't improve, work with the manager to manage them out of the team.

Here's AI response which I agree

I have been in a similar situation and when I faced it, I was able to clear my self. The advice I was given by the HR was to always observe and report any of my engineers who is slacking off after I verbally instruct and delegate work to them because, if you are too lenient with workers who you supervise or in the lead position in a team with, they might, which is 70% factual, make you pay for what they have done.

Had this problem a lot as a lead engineer - we have neither a carrot or a stick, but are always held responsible. For the most problematic cases, I would just call the person out for a status update or ask them to identify any blockers during a group standup meeting. Anything identified got a follow-up meeting that included the manager.

For less problematic cases, I would take it upon myself to review and test their work, and write bug tickets as necessary. That way you have a document trail if anyone asks "what happened?" you can at least claim that you were proactively working with the engineer to catch and address problems before they got shipped.

Good luck.

Hire me as a consultant to fix the team dynamics:)