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 Daltrey there’s a Townshend and for every Jobs there’s a Wozniak.
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 Los Angeles tech companies to find out how they transitioned from a lone engineer to a small dev team while keeping everyone on the same page:
Answers provided by Brian Gonzalez, Director of Engineering, Web Platform
"In the early days of Dollar Shave Club, the company relied on outsourced consultants until a business case could be validated for an in-house team. The first engineer was hired on April of 2012 to solve a very interesting challenge: how to select the right technologies for the future while making sure the site could handle the rapid scaling that we were experiencing. This required a phased approach by which we migrated three times in two years between third party platforms until we were ready to launch the current, DSC-built underlying infrastructure. Today, Dollar Shave Club has a team of 45 in-house engineers.
During the early days, we were looking for engineers with an entrepreneurial spirit, drive, and open source contributions. We were also looking for (and still look for) multifaceted engineers. A frontend developer who could design, a backend developer who could do devops, or a manual QA engineer who could write some SQL code.
Our needs were identified through pain points. We definitely adhered to the “Hire when it hurts” mentality outlined by Jason Fried, founder of 37 Signals:
“Don't hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain. Always ask yourself: What if we don't hire anyone? Similarly, if you lose someone, don't replace him immediately. See how long you can get by without that person and that position. You'll often discover you don't need as many people as you think.”
To that end, we kept the team lean and tight knit."
Answers provided by Jared Tafralian, Senior Architect, Engineering
"Aaron Hirschhorn (our founder and CEO) started out by creating a proof of concept with a freelance developer. Once he had the MVP built, he brought on a team of two engineers to continue to build out DogVacay, while staying highly involved with the product and engineering. In fact, Aaron even had a hand in the database design of our original product! Ultimately, the whole team was in this together to do whatever it took to get from ideation to a product offering as fast as possible.
We were looking for sharp engineers who were truly full-stack and willing to dive into any aspect of the product, be it API development, database design, reporting, building HTML markups, etc. We needed people who could wear many different hats, who could take an idea and run with it, and just make things happen. At that early stage, it’s also essential to find people who are able to add structure to ambiguity, to take very loose requirements and develop them into product features.
Once we got the first phase of product out, Aaron sought out a CTO to lead the engineering team. At that point, we were ready to build a stable structure and a robust engineering platform. He put together a team of experienced engineers who understood best practices and could build a strong foundation for development. As we grow further, we seek to build the development team further to promote specialization of focus rather than specialization of skills, who are willing to learn and grow with us."
