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“Please stop putting a Major or Lt Col. (despite their devotion, exceptional attitude, and culture) in charge of ICAM, Zero Trust or Cloud for 1 to 4 million users when they have no previous experience in that field – we are setting up critical infrastructure to fail.” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/time-say-goodbye-nicolas-m-chaillan
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Have a second round interview for a PM role next week — Does anyone know what the interview process/expectation is like between levels? @For example, you’re interviewing for a lower level, are the interview questions “easier” or is there a different quality of answer expected? Same question for higher levels. And full transparency, I know the questions are never truly “easy”, but curious what the difference is, if any. Thanks! Google
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I’ve built two engineering teams from the ground up for startups in the past decade and can tell you that it will always change. You build a solid core team and then expand according to a human capital budget that is derived from a top level roadmap. But of course, these things tend to implode. I’ve found that the best engineering teams in terms of culture agility and impact is around the 8-12 mark built around a strong engineering manager who wants to stay exactly where they are for the rest of their lives and a principal or staff who is passionate but absolutely abhor executives or “management” . Then you bulk up with up or out engineers and off you go. For a relatively weak or new EM, I wouldn’t go past 4. You’ll invite a lot of inefficiencies as well as a jaded engineering population if you go past. Additionally, your upper middle management needs to be past engineers. I’ve only ever heard of a non engineer holding the respect of an eng org in the context of big tech.
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Ah the classic "is there a benchmark for tech teams" dilemma- this is something my MBB teams tried to get me to make up when I was working there, but the truth is there is no suitable benchmark.
So much depends on the kind of product you're building and the skill sets you need to do it.
Creating an arbitrary benchmark of best practices was always silly to me. No startup starts with a benchmark they're trying to achieve. They grow based on current and near term need and adjust as needed. Obviously the benchmark likely skews more engineering heavy initially, and it always stays that way to some degree. But it's more qualitative than anything else.
A startup started by an engineer probably has only engineers to begin with (so no ratio). A startup founded by a designer probably has another kind of ratio. A startup founded by a business person probably has another ratio. See my point?