Lessons learned from scaling software

Room 5 - BestWestern

Scaling software is hard. One can argue that scaling software development teams is as hard as creating scalable solutions. Judging by my experience in many cases it's not less crucial though as it contributes to achievement of success as well.

A couple of thoughts from my experience with scaling teams I would like to discuss. As team grows: from somewhat small to big I prefer to move focus during interviews and team development from checking skill set towards culture alignment with current team. Development environment and toolset is becoming an obstacle more exponentially than linear. End-to-end responsibility (Spotify-tribe-alike) helps in both work division and efficiency. It's more crucial to mix "old" tribe with "newbies". Maintaining team integration is much harder so motivation stack (brown bags, knowledge sharing sessions, ship it days, 20% free time) helps a lot (introduced by Atlassian). The bigger team is the more work from leader is required to maintain the same team efficiency, spirit and culture. Understanding organisational behaviour is more crucial along the way. Self-aware leader comes more in hand.