EMPOWERED

PART VIIICase Study

This case study is necessarily quite detailed. To get a true understanding of why a company and product organization make the decisions they do, you need considerable context.

If you believe you already have a solid grasp of the concepts in this book, especially in terms of team topology, product strategy, and team objectives, then feel free to skim this part.

However, my hope is that you will consider the effort to understand the details of this example worthwhile, as you will see how these important, but difficult, concepts play out in practice—in a real organization struggling with rapid growth, scale, and tech‐debt challenges.

You will also be able to see a detailed example of how a company staffed with ordinary people was able to achieve extraordinary results.

This case study is based on my experience with an actual jobs marketplace company.

I chose this company because I think this is a good, representative example of a growth‐stage company dealing with challenges of scale.

The company also has elements of an enterprise business and elements of an early‐stage startup. So, I think this case study applies to most companies.

I also like using a jobs marketplace company because they sell to businesses on one side (employers) and consumers on the other side (job seekers), and they have an internal platform supporting both.

However, there are two important caveats:

First, this example represents the company at a specific point in time (from a few years ago). ...