Scaling software development teams
Brief bullet points of how to scale the team
This is very brief description for each stage of scaling software development teams.
Stage 0 (1-5 members)
This is the foundation stage. The goal is to move fast, build efficiently, and avoid future bottlenecks.
No Managers, Just Builders
No need for engineering managers yet, but someone must own technical decisions—a lead dev or tech lead who still codes.
Keep hierarchy flat, but responsibilities clear.
You Need a Process From Day One
A team without process is just chaos—define how work gets done early.
Short, focused check-ins help teams stay aligned and remove blockers.
Keep communication async when possible—meetings should solve problems, not report statuses.
Ship Fast, But Be Smart About Tech Debt
Speed matters, but reckless coding today means rewrites tomorrow.
Junior-heavy teams must be extra careful—bad codebases pile up unfixable tech debt fast.
Rule of Thumb: If your system can’t scale 10x with minimal refactoring, you’re in trouble.
Automation is a Must
CI/CD from Day 1 — manual deployments don’t scale.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) — Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, etc.
Logging & Monitoring Early — debugging production shouldn’t be guesswork.
Stage 1 (5-15 members)
At this stage, things start breaking if you don’t add structure, ownership, and discipline. The team is too big for everyone to know everything, so you need to organise properly without killing agility.
Functional Teams, Not Bureaucracy
Split into small, focused teams (~5-7 engineers) based on product areas, not just roles.
Avoid rigid silos — teams should be able to work across boundaries when needed.
Every team must have clear ownership over features, systems, or services.
Tech Leads, Not Managers
You still don’t need engineering managers, but experienced tech leads are critical.
Tech leads must still write code — otherwise, they lose technical credibility.
Their role: Mentor, unblock, review code, guide decisions — but not micromanage.
Communication & Alignment Without Meetings Overload
A single large engineering meeting is useless — keep updates async whenever possible.
Cross-team coordination is necessary — but avoid unnecessary layers of approvals.
Use internal documentation and lightweight roadmaps so teams don’t constantly block each other.
Keep Your Architecture in Check
Microservices? Not always the answer—a modular monolith often scales better at this stage.
APIs, contracts, and interfaces need to be stable — you can’t afford random breaking changes now.
Introduce tech reviews to maintain code quality without slowing teams down.
Scaling Hiring Without Lowering the Bar
Hiring too fast can create a culture and tech disaster — make sure you actually need more people before hiring.
A broken system + more engineers = bigger mess — fix bottlenecks before growing headcount.
Set up structured onboarding so new hires become productive in weeks, not months.
Stage 2 (30+ members)
Once you hit 30+ engineers, bad processes start slowing you down (it usually happens a lot earlier if you haven no process at all). The goal now is to scale without introducing unnecessary bureaucracy. You need efficient communication, sustainable development speed, and a culture that prevents stagnation.
Engineering Leadership Without Overhead
You still don’t need layers of managers, but you do need engineering leadership to maintain alignment.
Tech leads evolve into engineering managers, but they should still stay technical enough to make real decisions.
Managers should focus on mentorship, team health, and unblocking work—not controlling tasks.
Process That Enables, Not Blocks
Teams should operate autonomously, with clear accountability but minimal approvals.
No unnecessary reporting layers — if a decision takes 3+ meetings to approve, you’re doing it wrong.
Invest in internal documentation—scaling knowledge-sharing is critical now.
Technical Stability & Long-Term Scalability
Your system should be stable enough that onboarding a new engineer doesn’t break everything.
CI/CD, testing, and monitoring must be fully integrated—deployments should be boring, not a high-risk event.
Tech debt must be actively managed—set aside dedicated time per sprint for refactoring & maintenance.
Maintaining Engineering Culture & Talent Retention
If your best engineers start leaving, you’ve scaled wrong.
Avoid the "big company" trap—too many meetings, too much process, and a lack of autonomy drive people away.
Invest in career growth—engineers should have a clear path to senior roles, leadership, or deeper tech expertise.
Hiring Becomes More Strategic
You’re now competing with bigger companies for top talent—your hiring process needs to be fast and efficient.
Avoid hiring "just in case"—make sure every new hire has a clear purpose.
Balance junior and senior hires—too many juniors and you slow down, too many seniors and you have leadership bottlenecks.
Of course this is very brief note, to know more subscribe to this page and feel free to ask questions.
What’s the biggest challenge when scaling past 30 engineers? Drop your experiences below! 👇