Scale at Reddit: Triple Your Team Size Without Losing Control
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Nick Caldwell discusses the challenges of rapidly scaling a team at Reddit, particularly focusing on maintaining clear roles, organizational trust, and effective communication. He emphasizes the importance of having a flexible organizational structure that reflects company goals and enhances collaboration while also addressing the potential pitfalls of scaling, such as increased coordination costs and cultural disconnects. Caldwell advocates for the integration of diversity and inclusion into the company culture from the outset to foster better products and work environments.
Scale at Reddit: Triple Your Team Size Without Losing Control
- 1. TRIPLE THE TEAM SIZE without losing control
- 2. NICK CALDWELL Reddit, Inc. VP of Engineering Microsoft, Power BI General Manager MIT â03 Berkeley Haas â15
- 3. REDDIT Quick Stats âą 4th largest web site in the United States (Alexa) âą 325M monthly users Whatâs new? âą Executive team âą Dramatically different product vision âą Rapid expansion REDDIT COMPANY SIZE The home of conversation online
- 4. Within 3 years, 92% of startups fail... ⊠of those, 43% fail due to issues with SCALE! STARTUP Genome Report
- 5. MY FIRST WEEK AT REDDIT WOAH! § 30+ person standups § Google Slide tracking tools § Lots of tech leads but no engineering managers § No product team org chart §Urgent work to do ! Daily Standups
- 6. 1. ROLES + RESPONSIBILITIES Tech Founder Product Founder Quality Data Usability Internation alization Growth Market ing Engineers Product Design Sales BD Legal
- 7. R.A.C.I. Advantages âą Clear ownership outcomes
- 8. PRODUCT VS PROGRAM VS ENGINEERING MANAGERS Program Manager Product Manager âą Customer (who) âą Vision (what) âą Strategy (why) Eng. Manager âą Architecture (how) âą Execution (when)
- 9. R.A.C.I. Disadvantages âą Inflexibility âą Does not directly address lack of trust
- 10. People are candid and authentic Information is shared openly People are willing to share credit Transparency is a practiced value New ideas are welcome Mistakes are tolerated as a way of learning There are few âmeetings after the meetingsâ People talk straight and confront real issues There is a high degree of accountability High energy level HIGH ORGANIZATIONAL TRUST People manipulate or distort facts People withhold and hoard information Getting the credit is very important People spin the truth to their advantage New ideas are resistedd and stifled Mistakes are covered up or covered over There are numerous âmeetings after the meetingsâ There are many âundiscussablesâ People tend to over-promise and under- deliver Low energy level LOW Takenfrom:SpeedofTrust
- 11. TRUST (BUT VERIFY) People feel okay to say, âthatâs not my jobâ ⊠⊠when they can also say âthe person we hired to do it is amazing!â
- 12. The most terrifying and important part of successfully growing a product team is the org chart⊠2. (re)ORGS
- 13. 3. (RE) ORGANIZATION âOrganizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organization.â -Conwayâs Law You will eventually ship your org chart. -Translation
- 14. Your organization should reflect your company's most immediate goals and the best people for each goal should be continually moved to where they are most needed⊠⊠ideally
- 15. Relationships with key people change or get further apart Hurt feelings over projects getting defunded Scary instability as the ground shifts beneath you SUCK Surfaces leaders who are okay with uncertainty and discomfort Prevent empire building behaviors Creates new opportunities for people who want to grow skills Get the right people to where they need to be to urgently achieve changing business goals SUCK (LESS) REORGANIZATIONS
- 16. Groups of teams for every product. Minimize dependencies and maximize focus on user needs. âSharedâ teams, to provide cross- organizational support needs. Clear, time-bounded, mission statement for every box in your chart Do ship the org chart, but make sure you have the right one! - Conwayâs Law (revised)
- 17. WHATâS NEXT âDeath Starâ Architecture âThe design which occurs first is almost never the best possible, the prevailing system may need to change. Therefore, flexibility of organization is important to effective design.â â Mel Conway Perhaps, in the highly-networked and flexible teams of the future, the value of mission, culture, and relationships will dominate that of organization and architecture.
- 18. 3. EXECUTION AT SCALE, WHAT GETâS HARDER Awareness Everyone wants to know what everyone else is doing Bottlenecks Missed dependencies can cripple your production roadmap Coordination Here comes PROCESS: managers, tools, meetings
- 19. WHY? Surely, with more people we can just get more done! Right? Wrong! For every 1 engineer you hire, add to backlog 1.1 engineers worth of work Eventually, coordination costs and scope overcome your ability to deliver reliably. You will need a process change or reorg to keep scaling up. # PEOPLE Efficiency Curve Scope Output
- 20. PROCESS ADVICE AND CAUTION Avoid process junkies and boilerplate solutions. Evolve something that works for your team. Some variants of Agile promote intra-team coordination more than actually shipping code Original Toyota Kanban: minimal processes created from bottom up Value of visibility and dependency tracking increases exponentially with team size
- 21. REDDITâS FIRST PROJECT TRACKER
- 23. KANBAN AND STATUS BOARDS
- 24. KANBAN AND STATUS BOARDS
- 26. JIRA + TABLEAU Engineering Execution Dashboard
- 27. 4. SO MANY PEOPLE How can it be that the more people we have the more disconnected we feel?
- 28. ELEVATOR MOMENT
- 29. HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN YOU KNOW? Dunbarâs Number What is the MonkeySphere
- 30. YOU DONâT NEED TO KNOW EVERYONE AT THE PARTY TO HAVE A GOOD TIME! âą Make sure your core values are strong but assume that diverse subcultures will form âą Technology guilds, affinity groups, are all great ways to continue feeling connected âą Remote offices will develop different cultures. Double down on your core values and inclusion. âą Subcultures will emerge but donât let anyone ruin the party!
- 31. BUT WHAT ABOUT COMMUNICATION? WARNING: none of these methods work* newsletters, team syncs, company meetings, interest groups, documentation, regular 1:1s, posters, onboarding, press releases, offsite, Slack, Email, Wikis, dashboards *Alone. At scale, you have to use all of them!
- 32. BEAT THE TELEPHONE GAME message with extreme clarity broadcast for everyone leaders should repeat and reinforce overcommunicate
- 33. FINAL THOUGHTS ON GROWING TEAMS 2 opportunities and 1 challenge
- 34. DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION Diverse and Inclusive Teams: âą make better products âą are more fun to work in Like any cultural aspect, it will be extremely hard to âfixâ later Make D&I part of your company DNA before you expand!
- 35. Get executive support. It is not IC's responsibility to define hiring practices or D&I programs Create or invite inclusiveness groups to interact with your company Hire leaders first Be intentional, patient and persistent. DO DIVERSITY & INCLUSION Hire a "head of diversity" and expect them to fix everything Use the âdiversity of thoughtâ excuse or ever say, âwe donât see gender or colorâ Point out individuals without their permission Make assumptions about how much a diverse candidate cares about this issue Hire people who care more about diversity than delivery DONâT
- 36. SOCIAL IMPACT Your companyâs value to the world can be more than the products you ship.
- 37. As your team grows your connection to individuals will lessen. It will become easy to think of people as numbers or resources in your tracking tools⊠âŠremember that people are the most valuable part of your organization and the best part of being a manager.
- 38. CALLS TO ACTION Reddit is hiring! http://about.reddit.com Follow me!  Reddit https://www.reddit.com/user/nickcald  Twitter https://twitter.com/nickcald  Medium https://medium.com/@nickcaldwell  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickcaldwell/ Color Code Fund http://colorcode.fund