I absolutely agree that small teams work better. What you describe here is essentially how Google works (at least in the areas I have touched). The faster shipping by startups have different reasons than team size.
Also, beware the overly flat hierarchy. You will need some hierarchy as you grow larger, or the company will splinter in all directions. However, the higher level managers/tech leads can only handle so many subteams effectively. The teams-of-teams should also be small teams.
On communication, the vast majority of it is async and done through GitHub and Slack. We also have a weekly all-hands, each team does sprints, etc. So it's very easy for me or anyone else in the company to find out what an individual team or person is working on and why.
And yup, there's a good amount of collaboration between teams, especially on larger projects.
I absolutely agree that small teams work better. What you describe here is essentially how Google works (at least in the areas I have touched). The faster shipping by startups have different reasons than team size.
Also, beware the overly flat hierarchy. You will need some hierarchy as you grow larger, or the company will splinter in all directions. However, the higher level managers/tech leads can only handle so many subteams effectively. The teams-of-teams should also be small teams.
Great writeup. How is communication managed between teams? do people feel the need to do work that impacts multiple teams?
btw: The link to mykonos offsite is not working.
Hey! Thanks for spotting the broken link. That's fixed now. Should've been this: https://posthog.com/blog/mykonos-hackathon
On communication, the vast majority of it is async and done through GitHub and Slack. We also have a weekly all-hands, each team does sprints, etc. So it's very easy for me or anyone else in the company to find out what an individual team or person is working on and why.
And yup, there's a good amount of collaboration between teams, especially on larger projects.
Appreciate the shout out, James 🙏
Thanks.