Scaling an Engineering Team
Rapid growth creates opportunity, but it also creates pressure.
As companies scale, their technology needs often change faster than their teams can adapt. New products are introduced, platforms evolve, customer expectations rise, and engineering leaders are expected to build the capability required to support the next stage of the business.
For one of our long-standing clients, that challenge involved growing an engineering function from approximately 10 people to 80 over a two-year period.
This was not simply a recruitment exercise. The company was also undergoing a significant technical transformation, moving away from an established technology stack and developing a more modern, scalable platform.
The priority was clear: grow the team at pace without lowering the standard of each hire or losing sight of the company’s long-term engineering goals.
The Challenge
The business had ambitious plans for growth.
Its existing engineering team had built a strong foundation, but the company was entering a new phase. Supporting that growth would require greater technical capability, additional leadership, and a significantly larger engineering function.
At the same time, the organisation was replatforming from a traditional C# environment towards a JavaScript and serverless architecture.
This created several connected hiring challenges.
The company needed engineers who could contribute to the immediate technical roadmap while also supporting the direction in which the platform was moving. It needed to introduce new skills without disrupting the culture and ways of working that had already made the team successful.
Hiring quickly was important, but speed alone could not be the measure of success.
Every new person would influence how the engineering organisation operated as it grew. Poorly aligned hires could slow delivery, create management pressure, and make the wider transformation more difficult.
The business therefore needed a hiring approach that balanced pace, technical capability, leadership potential, and cultural alignment.
“Scaling an engineering team is not simply a question of increasing headcount.”
Creating Alignment Before Scaling
Large hiring projects often become difficult when the definition of a strong candidate remains too broad.
Job descriptions may outline the required technologies, but technical skills are only one part of the picture. It is equally important to understand how someone will operate within the team, communicate with stakeholders, respond to change, and contribute as the organisation evolves.
Before increasing hiring activity, Immersum worked closely with the company’s engineering leadership to develop a clear understanding of what success looked like.
This included:
The technical skills required for the current platform and future architecture
The experience needed at different levels of seniority
How teams were structured and expected to collaborate
The behaviours and working styles that suited the organisation
Where leadership capability would be needed as the team expanded
How each appointment supported the broader technical roadmap
This calibration created a consistent foundation for the hiring process.
Rather than viewing each vacancy as a separate search, the work was approached as part of a wider team-building strategy.
Building Across Multiple Levels
Growing an engineering organisation from 10 to 80 requires more than repeatedly hiring the same type of engineer.
As the company expanded, its needs became more varied. It required individual contributors with strong technical depth, engineers capable of working across evolving systems, and experienced leaders who could support larger teams and greater organisational complexity.
Immersum supported hiring across multiple levels of the engineering function.
This included engineering roles aligned with the company’s new technology direction, as well as senior and leadership appointments that would help shape the organisation as it grew.
One of the most important appointments was a Director of Engineering.
Leadership hires often have an impact far beyond their individual responsibilities. The right person can improve decision-making, strengthen communication, support managers, and create the conditions in which other engineers can perform successfully.
For that reason, the search required a broader assessment than technical experience alone. The successful candidate needed to understand the company’s current challenges while also helping build the engineering organisation it would require in the future.
Working as an Extension of the Business
The partnership developed over time rather than operating as a series of disconnected hiring assignments.
As Immersum’s understanding of the organisation deepened, candidate conversations became more informed and searches became increasingly precise.
The team could represent the opportunity with greater context because it understood:
Why the company was growing
How the technical platform was changing
What engineering leaders were trying to achieve
How individual roles connected to the wider strategy
What kind of environment candidates would be joining
This level of understanding helped create stronger alignment on both sides of the process.
Candidates received a clearer and more realistic picture of the company, while hiring managers met people who had already been assessed against the organisation’s specific requirements.
The relationship became less about responding to vacancies and more about supporting the continued development of the engineering function.
The Outcome
Over approximately 24 months, the company’s engineering team grew from around 10 people to 80.
During that period, Immersum supported the business through a major stage of technical and organisational development.
The outcome included:
Significant growth across the engineering function
Hiring across multiple levels of seniority
The appointment of key engineering leaders
Additional capability aligned with the company’s evolving technology stack
Continued support during a major replatforming programme
A long-term hiring partnership built on shared understanding and consistent calibration
The scale of the growth is significant, but the number of hires tells only part of the story.
The wider achievement was helping the company build an engineering organisation capable of supporting its next stage of development.
What This Project Reinforced
Scaling an engineering team is not simply a question of increasing headcount.
Each new hire changes the shape of the organisation. They influence how knowledge is shared, how decisions are made, how quickly teams can move, and how effectively the business can respond to future challenges.
When companies are also undergoing technical transformation, those decisions become even more important.
The people joining the business must be capable of contributing today while adapting to the organisation it is becoming.
That requires clarity from the outset.
Recruitment partners need to understand more than the technical requirements listed in a job description. They need context around the company’s direction, the leadership team’s priorities, the existing culture, and the outcomes the business is working towards.
The strongest teams are built when hiring becomes part of the wider growth strategy, rather than a reaction to immediate vacancies.
Building for the Next Stage
Growth places pressure on every part of a business, but engineering teams often experience that pressure first.
The challenge is not simply finding more people. It is building the technical capability, leadership structure, and team dynamics required to support the next stage of the company.
For this client, growing from 10 engineers to 80 required a sustained partnership, a clear understanding of the technical roadmap, and consistent alignment around what good looked like.
That clarity helped the business scale without treating quality and speed as competing priorities.
About Immersum
At Immersum, we partner with startups, scale-ups, and established technology businesses to build high-performing engineering, product, and technology teams. We believe exceptional hiring starts with understanding your business, your people, and your ambitions—not simply filling vacancies.
Whether you're making a critical leadership hire, scaling an engineering function, or building a team for your next stage of growth, we bring the insight, technical understanding, and long-term partnership needed to help you hire with confidence.
If you're navigating a period of growth or transformation, we'd love to start a conversation.
To learn more about our approach, get in touch with the Immersum team.