Building Your Engineering Roster
I’m a long-time sports fan, specifically baseball. I grew up watching the Atlanta Braves play at the height of their success, but now they’re going through a “rebuilding” process. If you’re not familiar with the sport, think of it like a big pivot — the team has changed strategy, traded away a lot of their more expensive players, and is trying to build a more successful team to compete with. It sounds a lot crueler than it is — Major League Baseball is a pretty player-friendly sport — but it can be pretty painful to watch if you’re a fan. Teams tend not to be very good at all when they’re rebuilding.
Because the team is so bad, fans are diverted from their normal focus — how well the team is doing on the field — to studying how the new team is being built. This is the first time I’ve ever witnessed this process closely, and it’s making me realize that there are a lot of similarities between building a winning baseball team and hiring a quality engineering team.
Team Composition
There are a few different player types that successful big-league teams tend to have on their rosters:
Superstars
Perhaps the most obvious because these are the famous players. They make big money, they deliver staggering results, and they’re constantly at the top of the newsreel. This is the top talent in the game, and they bring something special to the team that very few people could.
On an engineering team, the senior level developers and designers are your superstars. You expect them to produce at a higher level than the rest of the team, and they work hard to make that happen and stay at the top of their game.
Utility Players
There’s a surprising amount of flexibility that you need to have on a baseball team in order for them to succeed. Utility players are very important as a result — they’re not superstars, but they can play decently in any number of roles and give their manager a lot of options. Too often we disparage a “Jack of all trades” without realizing the value of their versatility.
If you’ve been in the engineering world for more than a little while you’ve probably met at least one of these people. A designer who can float between product and illustration without breaking a sweat, or a developer who’s perfectly comfortable jumping into a totally new space and executing well. Superstars tend to have one really great strength and you’re loathe to move them away from that, but the utility players? They’re the ones that make the superstar productivity possible by covering whatever else needs to be done.
Team Leaders
In baseball, much like in any other business, there’s a pretty clear divide between “management” and “the team.” While some managers gain a great deal of respect from their team, they also know that they’ll never be able to single-handedly lead the team to success. Some players have an innate ability to lead and garner the respect of the rest of the team — and these players often find themselves an inextricable part of championship teams because of their ability to unite and inspire the team to succeed.
If things go poorly, a clubhouse leader can very quickly turn into a “clubhouse cancer” and they can use their leadership to ill effect. I’ve witnessed that several times throughout my career, and I’m sure you can think of a few of these “bad apples” that you’ve been exposed to as well. However, in spite of that risk, team leaders are an integral part of the equation for success. While engineering teams don’t exactly win championships, the right kind of leaders can help you do some equally impressive things.
Veteran Presence
Hand in hand with the team leader is the “grizzled veteran.” Maybe past his prime, this player is still someone who injects value into the team with their experience and perspective. Baseball, like the tech industry right now, tends to favor the young and less-experienced, and that can be a major problem when the pressure is on. Having someone in the clubhouse who can say “look, I’ve been here, this is normal” and help keep things on an even keel is extremely helpful.
While we don’t have the added stress of the extremely public stage of American sports, there can be a lot of pressure and stress on an engineering team that can be extremely detrimental to team members that haven’t experienced it before. Having someone on the team who’s got a good track record in the industry and can help the team stay calm and collected can go a long way towards not just ensuring success, but also preventing burnout.
Prospect Talent
Every superstar starts somewhere. With VERY few exceptions, every great player had a little bit of a rocky start in baseball where they were that young kid trying to adjust to the big leagues. Giving prospects a chance to grow into their full potential may not add a ton of value to the team immediately, but it pays immeasurable dividends in the months and years to follow when those players reach maturity in their careers.
In the engineering world, these are your junior developers and designers. They may need regular help and guidance from more senior members of the team, and you may not be able to ask them to tackle very complicated or risky projects right away — but by giving them the experience they need to grow, you’re building your next superstar. The return on investment, if you want to think about it that way, is too great to ignore.
Evaluating Talent
One common thread that runs through all of these player archetypes: it’s all about what the player can give you, now and in the future. You never hear baseball scouts talk about what team a player played with before, or where they went to college, or the fact that they had that really great year several years back. Instead the focus is on the present: what’s the player’s current ability? What do you think their talent ceiling is — how much will they be able to contribute in the future? Is their personality a good match for the team? Do they fill the right role for us?
Many engineering teams would do well to adopt a similar approach. Instead of hiring people based on their pedigree — she worked in the valley, he graduated from such-and-such college — we’d do well to evaluate people based on what they can bring to the team. At Treehouse we explicitly don’t look at resumes when we’re hiring developers, and we don’t ask about whether or not you have a college degree — those things don’t matter because they don’t tell us anything about what you can contribute to the team now.
Who’s on your team? What kind of players are you recruiting, and what kind of balance are you trying to seek? Too many engineering teams focus on hiring superstars, but sports history is littered with one-dimensional teams that were full of superstars and they were never able to produce as a team. Understanding the needs of your team and finding the right people — yes, the superstars, but also the utility players, leaders, veterans, and prospects — will create your best path for success.
