Scaling to 100+ as a Director: Lessons From Growing Engineering Organizations

The presentation titled Scaling to 100+ as a Director: Lessons From Growing Engineering Organizations by Thiago Ghisi provides insights into leading and scaling engineering teams effectively. Thiago, an experienced engineering director at Nubank, shares his journey and lessons learned as his organization grew from 30 to over 100 engineers within three years.

Key Topics Covered:

• Leadership Evolution: Thiago discusses reinventing his leadership style to accommodate a rapidly growing team, likening the experience to "changing the wheels on a speeding train."
• Building a Leadership Team: Creating a cohesive and opinionated leadership team was pivotal in scaling from 30 to 100 engineers. Emphasizing psychological safety and aligning team levels were crucial steps.
• Cultural Shaping: Shaping organizational culture with a long-term view was essential. Observability and other best practices were integrated into Nubank’s culture through industry engagement and initiatives like book clubs.

Management Strategies:

1. Operational Cadence: Establishing a strong operational framework was vital for sustaining team performance and managing growth.
2. Performance Management: Balanced focus on both high and low performers ensured consistent productivity and development across the team.
3. Strategic Reorganizations: Constant re-evaluation and fine-tuning of organizational structures helped address emerging needs and optimize resources.

Key Lessons:

• Leadership requires constant reinvention and adaptation to the evolving needs of a growing organization.
• Fostering strong relationships and creating goodwill are critical for career progression at senior levels.
• Execution and decision-making should prioritize progress over perfection to maintain organizational momentum.

Conclusion: The talk emphasizes the importance of flexible leadership, strategic planning, and cultural development in effectively scaling engineering organizations.

For more insights into the methods and frameworks discussed, refer to the full transcript provided in the file.

This is the end of the AI-generated content.

When I took on the Director of Engineering role at Nubank, I had no idea just how many times I’d need to reinvent my leadership style. In the span of three years, my organization grew from 30 engineers to over 100, forcing me to recalibrate everything from meeting structures to team compositions to decision-making frameworks to scale myself.

I remember feeling like I was changing the wheels on a speeding train—trying to keep velocity while fundamentally reworking how we operated.

In this talk, I’ll share the highs, lows, and practical lessons from each year of this journey. We’ll explore the patterns that emerged as I navigated the organizational change: experimenting to find the right team topologies, building the leadership team, and embracing reorganizations as a natural part of scaling.

Key Takeaways:

• Up-leveling for Resilience & Sustainability – How to raise seniority, rotate expertise, and optimize team sizing and tenure distribution to enhance knowledge transfer, reduce silos, and build resilient squads that excel in crisis management, sustain operations, and tackle complex technical challenges.
• Building an Empowered & Coherent Leadership Team – Approaches for spotting and nurturing leaders who can carry the vision & the strategy through multiple layers of the organization.
• Continuous Reorganizations as a Feature, Not a Bug – How to view reorgs as iterative improvements rather than chaotic disruptions, and the communication strategies that make them stick.