Scaling Engineering Teams Globally, During and Post-Covid

On October 22, The Information hosted a roundtable discussion with chief technology officers and engineering leaders from dozens of tech companies to discuss scaling engineering teams during this strange new era of remote work. The conversation, hosted in partnership with the Consulate General of Canada, was confidential. We wanted to share with our subscribers several of the key themes and considerations that these leaders continued to return to.

• Hiring tailwinds: Several of the companies (particularly enterprise software businesses) are finding it much easier to hire engineers than a year ago, especially from companies that have had layoffs like Airbnb and Uber.
• Hiring workers remotely is creating new headaches, including issues around creating and protecting IP in different geographies, as well as securing visas. Companies discussed the desire to hire more engineers outside the U.S. if it could be as easy as hiring across different states in the U.S.
• Companies hiring aggressively in Canada say they have a much higher close rate for engineers there. They say the talent pool of designers and product managers in the region is smaller than in the Bay Area. 
• Moving forward, as companies fashion their long-term remote work plans, the decisions are being guided by what employees want, with a lot of companies feeling pressure to offer a remote work option, while being apprehensive about productivity loss and lack of corporate culture cohesion. Most companies who participated in the conversation plan to have physical office hubs as well as a remote “hub.”
• In structuring remote only teams, companies are trying ensure their teams are working on the same product and that people are co-located with their managers. 

To attend or host a future roundtable, please email [email protected].