Stay at one manager for as long as you possibly can. Until they cry, beg, plead, and threaten to put in another. As soon as your hierarchy goes from MGR->everyb

Stay at one manager for as long as you possibly can. Until they cry, beg, plead, and threaten to put in another. As soon as your hierarchy goes from MGR->everybody-doing-work to MGR->Leads->everybody-doing-work. If you're a startup, you shouldn't need the sets of services those intermediate leads provide in a large organization -- shielding from upper management, negotiating deadlines/resource-sharing with external teams, HR's performance review madness of the quarter, etc. In practice, I've found I can handle up to about 13 or so directs and keep steering the development boat before things start getting too hectic and I start to drop things on the floor. YMMV, I am not an investor.