Scaling your engineering team from one to 50 and beyond [100th edition ??]

Also, leadership strategies for product phases and the future of junior developers.

This is the 100th edition of the newsletter??, it has been quite an insightful journey, and much of it is still in writing! Thank you for sticking around and for helping me iterate on this project with your valuable feedback.

I hope this edition brings you value.

The digest

Scaling your engineering team from one to 50 and beyond (Jessica Popp / Bessemer Venture Partners)

Scaling engineering teams requires embracing change, not status quo. Jessica Popp advises leaders to make tough decisions early, adjust leadership style to company stage, and carefully consider remote work policies to balance talent access with team efficiency.

If you've maxed the available talent in your current location and/or there's an abundance of a specific skill set or subject matter expertise in another country, that's a great reason to build a global engineering team.

Leadership strategies for product maturity?phases (AbdulFattaah Popoola / CodeKraft)

As products evolve from startup to scale, leaders must shift focus from effectiveness to retention to efficiency, adjusting strategies and team composition accordingly. The author warns against applying strategies from one phase to another, emphasizing the importance of hiring or training the right talent for each stage.

Say goodbye to "junior" engineering roles (or not?) (Stackoverflow interview with Kirimgeray Kirimli)

Kirimli envisions AI as a powerful tool, not a replacement for junior devs (not very soon, at least). While it can assess code complexity and aid with reviews, new developers can focus on higher-level skills, potentially accelerating their growth into more senior roles.

Dialog

Did you check my latest Dialog with Jelle Smeets?

Dialog is the newest addition to the Exec Engineering newsletter. A series of interviews with seasoned tech leaders on the topics of tech talent, product, management and culture.

More reads

• 10x engineering teams (Aviv Ben-Yosef)
• Are you successful? (Paulo André)
• All I need to know about engineering leadership I learned from Leave No Trace (Jacob Kaplan-Moss)

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About Exec Engineering

I’m Yassine ??. I spend a big chunk of my time digging into engineering management and talent acquisition, especially where the two overlap. I share the most interesting resources I come across in this newsletter, all curated by hand.

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