Growth comes quickly with early-stage startups. And as your startup gains traction, your lean engineering team can quickly become overstretched. Whether you're moving from pre-seed to seed or scaling to Series A, restructuring your tech team is essential. At a growth pace, new demands arise quickly and without the right structure, your team can become inefficient and lose focus.
In this post, I’ll explore how to structure your engineering team at the different stages of growth to ensure optimal speed, autonomy, and delivery efficiency. We’ll dive into the benefits of splitting teams effectively, why cross-functional squads are powerful, and what lessons we can learn from companies like Shopify, Netflix, and Uber.
The stages of team growth: from one team to many
As your startup scales, your engineering team will evolve, moving from a small, all-hands-on-deck group to a more structured organization with specialized roles. This shift is necessary to maintain efficiency and support rapid growth. Understanding how to adjust your team structure at different stages is crucial for maintaining momentum and avoiding common pitfalls that can slow progress.
The early days: one team does everything
Early on, your tech team is small—often under 10 people—with everyone wearing multiple hats. At this stage, engineers are involved in everything: building features, managing infrastructure, customer support, bug fixes, and all things in between. This approach works well because the team is nimble, decisions are made quickly, and communication flows naturally when everyone is in the same room (or Slack channel).
The growing pains: the team slows down
As the team grows, from 10 to 20 engineers, you may start to notice slowdowns. Decision-making becomes harder, communication overhead increases, and context-switching becomes overwhelming. When everyone is responsible for everything, priorities often clash, and focus is lost. This is a classic sign that it's time to start splitting the team into smaller, more focused units.
Scaling beyond 40 engineers
When the team grows beyond 40 engineers, it's time to consider adding an additional layer to the structure. At this point, you may need to introduce multiple cross-functional teams grouped by product lines or business goals. Each group can be made up of several smaller teams (often called squads or pods) that focus on different aspects of the product. Adding engineering managers and a senior product lead for each group helps maintain alignment, ensures that best practices are shared, and avoids duplicating efforts across teams. This structure balances autonomy with a layer of coordination that prevents teams from diverging too much.
Do I need to split the team
To determine if it's time to restructure, keep an eye on key performance indicators within your team:
- Monitor average cycle time for features: Are features taking longer to complete?
- Observe communication breakdowns: Are more meetings needed to keep everyone aligned?
- Track blocked tasks: Are there frequent dependencies causing delays?
- Gather team feedback: Do engineers feel overwhelmed or confused about priorities?
Regularly reviewing these factors will help you spot inefficiencies early and take action.
How to split teams effectively
Splitting your engineering team is a critical step in managing growth, but it requires careful planning to ensure you don't create new bottlenecks or inefficiencies. The goal is to foster autonomy and ownership while keeping the team aligned and productive.
Why splitting teams by technology slows you down
One common mistake when splitting teams is organizing them by technology, such as having separate "frontend," "backend," and "infrastructure" teams. While this might seem logical, it often creates bottlenecks and reduces ownership. Teams focus only on their part, leading to dependency chains, delayed handoffs, and siloed work. As a result, overall delivery speed suffers.
Instead of splitting by technology, it's far more effective to create autonomous product delivery teams. Each team should be cross-functional, meaning it includes all the skills necessary to deliver a feature end-to-end. A typical autonomous team might include:
- Team size: 5-9 people
- Roles included: 3-6 software engineers, tech lead, product manager, product designer*
- Responsibilities: end-to-end feature delivery, ownership of product area, direct communication with stakeholders
This setup enables teams to fully own a specific product area, which reduces dependencies and boosts delivery speed. With all necessary roles within the same team, communication is more efficient, and priorities are clearly aligned. This structure ensures that everyone involved works toward the same goal, streamlining both the decision-making process and execution.
The ideal team size is typically between 5-9 people. This range strikes a balance: it's big enough to cover all essential roles, yet small enough to remain agile and make quick decisions. Smaller teams foster a stronger sense of ownership, ensuring that each member feels their contribution directly impacts the product. This dynamic not only enhances responsibility but also speeds up execution and maintains the team's ability to pivot quickly when necessary.
*In this model, I don't include a dedicated QA engineer because the focus is on creating cross-functional, autonomous teams that are responsible for the end-to-end delivery of features. The idea is to foster a culture of ownership, where quality is embedded into the development process itself. Developers, alongside the product manager and designer, take responsibility for testing, ensuring high-quality code through automated testing, code reviews, and continuous integration. This approach reduces dependencies and promotes faster iteration while maintaining a high standard of quality across the team.
Feature squads vs. shared backlog teams
When structuring your teams, there are two common models to consider: feature squads and shared backlog teams. Each has its advantages and drawbacks, depending on the size and flexibility needed within the engineering team.
- Feature squads: These teams are dedicated to a specific feature or area of the platform. For example, one squad might be responsible for user onboarding, while another focuses on the payment system. The benefit of feature squads is deep domain knowledge—the team becomes the expert in their area. However, the downside is that it can lead to knowledge silos, making it harder for team members to switch squads if needed.
- Shared backlog teams: In this model, multiple teams pull from a shared backlog based on priority. This approach can be helpful when there are fewer engineers, and flexibility is needed. The downside is that teams might lack a sense of ownership, and context-switching can slow down progress if priorities shift too often.
My suggestions for structuring teams
Below are a few strategies I recommend for structuring your tech team effectively as it scales:
- Start small, split early: As soon as you notice your team slowing down, consider splitting into cross-functional squads. Don’t wait until frustration builds and progress stalls.
- Emphasize ownership: Ensure each team has clear ownership of a product area or feature. This leads to better quality, as engineers feel more invested in their work.
- Balance specialization and generalization: Early on, having engineers who can work across the stack is valuable for flexibility. As you grow, start introducing more specialization, but maintain a culture where engineers can move across teams when needed.
- Communication cadence: As you split into more teams, make sure there is a regular cadence for communication across teams to avoid silos. Techniques like bi-weekly demos or cross-team syncs can help maintain alignment.
Final thoughts
Structuring your tech team effectively during rapid growth is a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to set the foundation for long-term success. By focusing on cross-functional, autonomous teams, and avoiding silos, you can keep your startup nimble, innovative, and ready to tackle the next big challenge. Draw inspiration from successful companies but adapt their strategies to fit your unique context and growth stage.
If you're currently facing challenges with your team's structure or want to discuss how to tailor these approaches to your startup, feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear about your experiences and help however I can.
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