

Ask HN: What Developer:Manager ratio should startups aim for? - some_guy

I am curious what ratio is commonly seen in startups development teams (including managers and devs, excluding sales/marketing) of say 10-20 people.  Would any ratio's cause you concern as a investor or employee?
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larsberg
Stay at one manager for as long as you possibly can. Until they cry, beg,
plead, and threaten to put in another. As soon as your hierarchy goes from
MGR->everybody-doing-work to MGR->Leads->everybody-doing-work. If you're a
startup, you shouldn't need the sets of services those intermediate leads
provide in a large organization -- shielding from upper management,
negotiating deadlines/resource-sharing with external teams, HR's performance
review madness of the quarter, etc.

In practice, I've found I can handle up to about 13 or so directs and keep
steering the development boat before things start getting too hectic and I
start to drop things on the floor. YMMV, I am not an investor.

