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I debate the idea that at a mere 40 person team you would want or justify 3 levels of engineering managers? That seems excessive. I worked on a team half that
by donatj 2y ago
I debate the idea that at a mere 40 person team you would want or justify 3 levels of engineering managers? That seems excessive.
I worked on a team half that size with a single manager, our "lead developer" and it was remarkably smooth.
I ask what is keeping the VP of engineering so busy that they can't handle that work themselves?
- andsoitis 2y ago> I worked on a team half that size with a single manager, our "lead developer" and it was remarkably smooth. In a 20 person team the lead developer also played the role of EM?
- donatj 2y agoOnly person above the lead was the owner of the company, who was a total business man with no tech skills whatsoever.
- andsoitis 2y agoI’m going to infer then no other engineers in the company and probably relative low complexity in terms of product and partnerships etc. Limited transferability in all likelihood.
- bluGill 2y ago3 levels is excessive for 40 engineers. You need the CIO, and below that 2-4 managers (there is some debate over how many people a manager can handle - 30 is too much, 5 is too little). You need that 3rd layer when the team is so large the CIO cannot manage all the managers reporting to him.
- drewcoo 2y agoAt the top of the org there is often an inward-managing VP focused on execution reporting up to an outward-facing CTO who focuses on tech direction and relations with external parties. I'm not saying that has to happen. I'm just saying I've seen that more often than not. Maybe it's a side-effect of having tech founders who don't really want to manage.