Take-home: our engineering managers each have twelve reports and nobody is sure who owns what. Send us a written org design with the before, the after and how you would get there.
A strong written org design starts from an ownership map, cuts teams around product domains a team can ship alone, fixes span of control without moving the overload up a layer, and staffs every new manager seat by name or by hire. Worked below: 96 engineers, 8 overloaded managers becoming 15, moved over 16 weeks.
Answer
Short answer
A written org design exercise is graded on whether the new structure could be staffed and moved into without breaking delivery. Start from an ownership map of who changes and supports each service. Cut teams around product domains a team can ship alone, bring span of control down to six to eight without simply giving yourself twelve direct managers, and name how every new manager seat gets filled. Then give a transition plan in which on-call moves last.
The live version of this question is about how you would reason in the room. This page is the written exercise, so it shows the submission itself. For the mechanics of measuring coupling before re-cutting teams, see re-cutting three teams that touch every feature.
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Likely follow-ups
- Two of your current managers both want the same group lead role. How do you run that selection, and what do you say to the one who does not get it?
- The mobile engineers say splitting them across product teams will destroy their practice. What do you change, if anything?
- Six weeks after the change, cross-team handoffs have not fallen. What do you check before concluding the design is wrong?
- How would the submission change if you could not hire anyone for a year?
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