The Engineering Executive's Primer

Appendix D. Starting Engineering Hubs

Coincident with the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the state of remote and in-person work has been in ceaseless flux. Companies abruptly shifted from mostly working in the office to working from home. This has been followed by an unpredictable return to offices, with both employees and executives trying to find a new equilibrium. Many companies founded in 2023 are leaning heavily into in-office culture. Others are celebrating their commitment to remote work from the very beginning. Holders of both these opposing perspectives are confident they’re well-positioned for the future.

With that backdrop, it feels somewhat quaint to write about a small slice of that larger conversation: founding your second Engineering hub, your first Engineering hub outside of your founding office. While this slice is far from the whole topic, my hope is that thinking through this subset will provide some insight into the many office- and location-based challenges confronting a modern Engineering executive.

I’ve personally found opening hub offices to be particularly instructive because they offer a rare chance to bootstrap an existing company’s culture in a new environment. There’s been something new to learn each time I’ve been involved in spinning up an office, from Uber’s presence in Lithuania, to Stripe’s presence in Seattle, and SocialCode’s acquihire of Digg that formed a new San Francisco office.

In this appendix, we’ll work through:

• Why I call ...