Running international software development teams
Introduction
Gett’s story goes back to 2010. It was definitely the beginning of a new era, and the hype around the new ride sharing / mobility applications was at its highest point.
Gett’s product was initially developed by an outsourcing organization. In 2011, the Company’s R&D center was established in Israel, and the product was transitioned to an in-house development.
Subsequently, Gett decided to expand its R&D operation, and, in 2017, opened its branch in Russia, Moscow, gradually recruiting a significant number of engineers at that location (unfortunately, we had to shut down the Russian site in 2022, due to the war in Ukraine).
At first, the engineers in Moscow joined existing Israeli teams, and were managed remotely by Israeli TLs.
In 2018, (pre-Covid era, online video cooperation still not that common) Gett’s R&D management made a decision to assign all Russia-based engineers to a single engineering department, with its own local management, and to shift the responsibility over a single product domain to that new established group — effectively transitioning to a model of developing homogenous regional teams.
During the pandemic things began to change. Remote work became the standard, and we identified an opportunity to recruit not only in Moscow, but also in other Russian regions, thus some teams became multi-locational again.
They say you cannot teach an old dog new tricks — but Gett has a very young and dynamic spirit, so we learned and learned a lot. Now our RnD consists of culturally heterogeneous teams, with engineers from Poland, Cyprus, the UK and Israel.
This blog was penned to advocate for building international teams, to offer our suggestions on how to do it better, and, overall, to share the lessons we have learned through our journey.
The advantage of cultural heterogeneity
Since its formation 13 years ago, Gett has gone through various evolutionary phases, from all possible perspectives. One of them is Gett’s R&D and Product organizational structure, which had gone through several turbulent eras, until eventually stabilizing approximately three years ago.
At one point, pre-Covid (seems to us like it was centuries ago), Gett expanded to Russia and opened its own RnD facility in Moscow hiring software engineers who joined existing teams in Israel. That worked — but not perfectly. The decision making mechanisms in an Israel-based company were… obviously in Israel. Russian employees often didn’t feel as equals during team meetings that were attended by most team members in-person, while they had to participate remotely. Thus, when the RnD site in Russia reached the size of an average department (~20 engineers), Gett’s RnD management made a decision to combine all the engineers there into one group, and to move one subdomain of the system under their responsibility. The new arrangement worked fairly well until 2020 when Covid suddenly broke into our lives, completely disturbing the way we perceived work environment and dynamics.
Gett reacted fast, and introduced the “Flexi” model, which allowed our employees the flexibility to work either from the office or from home, and the choice between 4 or 5 working-days a week.
Company-wide switch to working from home (WFH) became one of the immediate outcomes of the pandemic, leading to the conclusion that we can expand regional recruiting way beyond Moscow (since we all worked remotely anyway), in order to expand the available talent pool.
Additionally, we integrated one of our Russian subsidiaries’ development teams into an Israeli one — reverting to our original model of mixed teams, which this time, in the world of WFH, with everyone communicating over VC, worked very well.
Simultaneously, other dynamics began evolving inside Gett, leading to significant differences in engagement levels among teams.
Following a thorough analysis of engagement results, it became clear that heterogeneous teams had significantly better vibes, and got better integrated within the company!
Therefore, we made a decision to gradually transition all our teams to this model.
Today, three years after initiating this process, all teams at Gett are 100% multinational.
Each team has engineers from Poland, Cyprus (mostly our former Russian employees who relocated there), the UK, Israel, as well as some other countries.
Correlation between cultural diversity and positive teams’ dynamics could definitely make a good subject of anthropological research one day, — in the meantime it appears that the cohesion we have been able to achieve at Gett is the golden path in that sense.
Yes, it is definitely a bigger challenge for engineering managers, to maintain and balance multinational teams. Nevertheless, this cultural diversity also has huge potential — every culture brings its unique strengths to the table, and with the right support — the resulting dish is much tastier, making teams much more successful.
Different business days / Different life challenges
Israel is quite unique from its business week perspective — we work Sunday to Thursday, while other European countries where our engineers are located have Monday — Friday as their business days.
This situation presents some coordination challenges to the teams, though also offers opportunities — if well managed.
On one hand, there are only four overlapping business days to work together — plan, coordinate, provide feedback etc.
On the other hand, it allows a relatively quiet and productive working day on Sunday for the Israelis, and the same on Friday for our engineers in Cyprus, Poland and the UK — since all meetings are held on the remaining four business days (Monday-Thursday).
In addition, at Gett we hold the end-to-end responsibility over our system, meaning that each team monitors and tracks its microservices, and fixes production issues and “fires” if/when those occur. Having team members available to “cover” for their teammates, who do not work on Friday or Sunday, helps a lot!
What is really important to keep in mind, is that the key factor for success is to respect each others’ days off — people shouldn’t be disturbed while off, even if their teammates are working.
Having teams spread across different countries also allows us to support each other during holidays seasons (September/October in Israel and December/January in Europe) or when facing local cataclysms and crises — in 2021 we supported our colleagues in Russia and Ukraine who faced tough times — and nowadays we are fortunate to be supported by our non-Israeli friends, given the tough situation in Israel.
Time zone challenges
As mentioned earlier, at Gett we practice the “Flexi” working model, meaning that we support our employees working remotely for a certain period of time.
That said, we decided we wouldn’t like to have our employees spread across more than 1–2 hour time zone differences. Given the business week differences, we want the mutual working days to have overlapping working hours, so we can effectively use our time and meet together to make decisions, coordinate and drive our projects forward — without abusing our colleagues’ daily time off, and hurting one another’s work-life balance.
Work routines
Agile practices have become the common denominator for the international software industry, thus the dailies, the weeklies, peer code and design reviews as much as the grooming and the planning meetings allow mutual principals for professionals from all over the world.
All of our teams work according to agile methodologies, though we allow our team leaders to choose their own flavor.
Both project-related and informal meetings are essential components of our daily schedule. They play a crucial role in ensuring a comprehensive and transparent flow of information throughout the organization, facilitating the exchange of diverse opinions, and coordinating requirements, timelines, and deliveries. We conduct regular one-on-one meetings, occurring either weekly or bi-weekly, with our managers, colleagues, and team members. These sessions are designed to consistently gauge the overall atmosphere, collect valuable feedback, and offer mentoring support.
Employee motivation and performance in remote environment
Working remotely (most of the time for some and the entire time for others) may pose significant challenges for managing teams and their projects. At Gett we work hard to stimulate the highest degree of engagement by our employees (including product and engineering challenges, great team atmosphere, learning and development — those may be a topic for another blog), as we value impact, not effort.
With these dynamics, we have been able to achieve outstanding team performance, as demonstrated by our remarkable engagement results (88%).
Bottom Line
Multicultural and multinational teams can be a major advantage for a company, so long as it capitalizes on the benefits, and handles the related challenges. It contributes vitality, positive dynamics and healthy growth of the organization, in addition to providing fresh perspectives.
I highly recommend continuous reliance on this strategy of organizational growth, as it helped us build such teams and enjoy a successful and productive atmosphere in our engineering organization.
