At my current organisation, we went from 70 people in Engineering in Nov 2019 to just over 200 people in 2023i. That’s a growth of 134 people in 48 months or adding four new people to our Engineering group every month for three years.
I had the privilege of having a front-row view of this growth, joining as a Principal Engineer and moving into the Head of Engineering role in mid-2020.
What did I learn through this period? Many, many things! One day I’ll blog about all of them. Today I’m just mentioning the headlines.
First, when you grow so quickly, you better have good foundations before you start. That means a solid onboarding process, agreement on the culture you want to create, and a process set to scale. It takes a lot of work to change things mid-flight once you start the growth journey.
Next, you need to be comfortable with things needing improvement. In rapid growth, things break, and there is always a fire to put out. Be comfortable with this just being part of the job.
Finally, first who, then what. Being surrounded by resilient folks who you work well with is really important.
