How to Structure Engineering Teams 🏯

A thorough guide about principles, roles, growth stages, and plenty of resources.

Since the very beginning of Refactoring, I have written a lot about organizing and scaling engineering teams.

That’s because this is a core part of my work experience — as CTO of an early stage startup first, and manager of a high-growth, larger company later.

There is even a full section in the Library about it 👇

The “Structuring Teams” topic section in the Library. It contains 8 articles written by me, and plenty of additional resources.

Articles I have written usually cover specific aspects — from the need for managers, to how communication changes with growth.

So, today I am publishing a comprehensive Guide 📖 that puts together everything I said about this topic in a coherent framework that you can use at work. It will be a way longer, more in-depth and more researched article than usual!

I write one of such guides about once a month. You can learn more about Refactoring Guides below 👇

Refactoring Guides 📖

So, here is what we’ll cover today:

• 🔭 Principles — what makes a team good? Mental models for creating effective engineering teams.

• ⏳ Teams longevity — how long should a team last? What are teams *really* about?

• 🎽 Roles — what are the core roles and responsibilities you should assign?

• 🪴 Growth Stages — how does structure change through the various growth stages of a company?

• 🤔 Unconventional Teams — stories and tactics of companies that do things differently.

• 💬 Community Stories — two real-world team structures from the Refactoring community.

• 📌 Takeaways — summarizing this long guide into four main actionable points.

Let’s dive in!