Scaling an engineering team can seem like a mighty feat. A growing company is going to be in need of a growing engineering team to keep up with the demands of the job. Whether you need three or 30 engineers on your team, it is important that you take the necessary action to get qualified and experienced engineers on your team.
At Austin Nichols, we help companies find the engineers that they need to grow at an appropriate pace. Here are a few tips that we recommend taking if you need to scale your engineering team.
1. Build an Efficient Hiring Pipeline
The key is to create a hiring pipeline that can carry you through the busiest hiring seasons. The first step is to develop a formal process. One way to ensure success is to speak to the whole team to make sure everyone is involved and an active part of the hiring process.
Establishing a formal hiring and on-boarding process will make all additional hiring so much easier for the whole company. Be disciplined in using your new approaches.
Hiring managers are going to need a little extra help during periods of rapid hiring. Give them the support that they need. In some cases, this might mean hiring a professional to help with your hiring.
Professional help during the hiring process can ease the burden that the hiring process usually places on the shoulders of numerous employees within your organization. Technical recruiting services like Austin Nichols are going to be able to bring your company a pool of applicants to choose from. Additionally, these types of services can often vet candidates and perform phone interviews on your behalf.
2. Develop Your Team Members
As you start hiring new employees, it is important that you don’t neglect the people who are already working for you. Hiring new engineers might mean that other members of the current team fall into new roles. It is important that you discuss these transitions with your team and help everyone through the transition.
It is especially important to talk about roles within the company if you are hiring someone senior level who is going to come in to manage members of the current team.
3. Train Managers
Often, managers in engineering fields are engineers first instead of trained managers. For this reason, it is a good idea to focus some of your resources on training managers in management techniques that fit the standard that you want to set in your company. This training should teach up-and-coming managers how to delegate, organize their time, and lead a team.
As your team continues to grow, so will your management team. Don’t forget to continuously invest in scaling up the management team as well.
4. Evaluate Company Culture
It is so easy for the addition of new team members to destroy the current company culture. As you grow, remember that the focus on culture shouldn’t start to lapse. This could lead to hiring people who don’t fit in with your company’s culture.
By working together as a team, you can discuss the current company culture and values to make sure that everyone is on the same page. You can also talk about current and future goals. Once you have these set, you will want to test any incoming candidates for a cultural fit.
As you continue to hire people, be sure to check in with your team. Make sure everyone is still happy. You don’t want to hire someone to lose another due to unhappiness.
5. Establish a Team Structure
Company structure is important to a lot of employees in all types of fields. It is important to determine the structure so that everyone knows their roles and to whom they report.
It is also a good idea to split your larger team into smaller teams under different managers. You can create defined teams that each have their own projects to worry about. A team of three to nine people can get a lot done without being overwhelming to the manager. Plus, focused teams are more likely to become experts in certain aspects of the business, which can be beneficial for a number of reasons.
6. Build Strong Technical Foundations
Quality and consistency are much easier to monitor in a small group. As your company expands, it is important to find ways to keep technical foundations solid so that your quality doesn’t start to slip. Try to think of ways that you can build these foundations. For example, maybe there are things that you automate to speed up your processes. You should be systematic in your team’s approaches to tasks and create processes that you can share with the whole team.
7. Create Necessary Processes
It is so important that you create documents that show how you expect tasks to be completed to help speed up the training process for existing employees and new hires. In these processes, you can spell out any necessary steps that need to be taken during a specific task. By creating processes, you can make sure that everyone is on the same page when learning each task.
8. Maintain Great Communications
Growing teams will suffer from growing pains. It is part of it. However, keeping an open line of communication with managers is crucial during this time. All team members should feel comfortable going to management and each other with problems or for help.
One way to work on communication is to do team building activities regularly. This could be as simple as a group lunch or as complicated as going to team building workshops.
If you need help with the hiring process, Austin Nichols is a great place to start. We work with skilled engineers to place them in roles that they are a good fit for. To get started, contact us today at 816-471-5575.
