The Four Walls You Hit Between 20 and 200 Engineers

An annual engineering conference in Austin, Texas, where Mike introduces Rebecca and John for a keynote presentation.

The Four Walls You Hit Between 20 and 200 Engineers

True or false?

The speakers claim that hypergrowth felt like an endless hiring spree with pizza.

• True
• False

Their second wall involved Conway's law and messy microservices.

• True
• False

The third office shown was located in a downtown skyscraper in Seattle.

• True
• False

The final slide revealed that they bought back their original garage.

• True
• False

Mike joined them on stage to discuss dilution of culture at the end.

• True
• False

Listen again and complete the sentences

• John: Then came wall number two: the first ____ and the dreaded dilution of culture. We tried to codify practices, but it felt like drowning in process debt.
• John: And wall four? That was the painful realization that our growing headcount was ____ as productive as our original five-person crew.
• Rebecca: ____ frustrating was the second-system effect. We over-engineered everything because we thought we were Google.
• John: It's ____ a corporate campus, but frankly, it's more of a home than a proper office anyway.

Sources: photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels