Entrepreneurs are often seen as tech rockstars due to their grandiose keynotes and lavish lifestyles. But just like their frontmen counterparts, entrepreneurs often overshadow the true geniuses who are crafting the product.
If a gifted drummer or bassist is the backbone to a song’s success, it takes a knowledgeable listener to recognize their contribution. And the same can be said for the unsung engineers who craft a brilliant piece of software.
For every Jobs there’s a Wozniak and for every Daltrey there’s a Townshend.
But unlike these unheralded band members, your dev team needs to grow as your company finds success. So how do you find that perfect balance between staying lean and hiring who you need to take the company to the next level?
We spoke with established Chicago tech companies to find out how they transitioned from a lone engineer to a small dev team while keeping everyone on the same page:
Aaron Rankin, CTO and Co-Founder
“When Sprout first hired and grew beyond the founders, we went from two engineers to five. Initially we kept working just like before, with everyone working independently on distinct features. As a very small team, that system was great for individual productivity since little regular communication or coordination was needed. Back then everyone had to be able to do everything. We hired smart, driven generalists who could learn fast and fail fast.
As the team and product matured and grew over the first year, the technical surface area grew considerably and our engineers needed to specialize. We began hiring developers who could focus on the front-end or the back-end. We have more types of engineers today, but those two distinctions still exist. It’s interesting looking back how those decisions can stick with you."
J Schwan, Founder & CEO,
“It's a matter of letting go, providing others autonomy and accountability. As a Founder, sometimes it's hard to let go of what you ‘know’ or what you're good at. But you have to if you want your business to scale and to evolve as a leader yourself. [The first hires] had to be a cultural fit more than anything. We hired one individual that was super talented but was very selfish and a constant cynic. He made himself and everyone around him miserable. We got rid of him quickly. You need strong players to grow a business but you also need people that believe what you believe and are looking to build something bigger than themselves.
Fundamentally we always look to hire "engineers". Not iOS Developers or Java Developers or whatever. As an emerging technology consultancy the technology and languages we are working with are constantly changing, but the fundamentals of computer science don't change. We looked for people that had a broad skill set that could pick up new tech quickly. As we grew individuals became more specialized based on where their interest level was, but everyone knows that at any given moment they may be asked to learn something new."
Perry Marchant, Vice President of Engineering
“When we were a smaller team, our development process was much more ad hoc — requests flew in, and we were very tactical around getting it done and out the door. As our product and team scaled, we formalized the approach to our development, making it more repeatable, and layering in continuous improved processes. We’ve always been consistent in getting our product out the door in a timely fashion, but if we didn’t adapt our practice with more reliable and predictable processes, it would have eventually broken down.
“It was also important during the early days to hire developers with more experience, because they set the foundation for the rest of the team and the product. As the team grew, we could bring on those with less experience because by that time we had more structure in place to support them and help them grow."
Another struggle of scaling your dev team is knowing if your product is performing as well as it should. To learn more about harnessing software analytics, check out what New Relic has to offer.
