The 5 Breaking Points of Engineering Scale

Most engineering organizations struggle when systems, leadership, and culture fail to evolve as the team grows. What works beautifully at 10 engineers breaks at 30, what works at 30 breaks again at 75, and almost everything breaks by 150 unless leaders adapt proactively. I will discuss how comms, org design, decision-making, leadership, and culture should evolve as orgs scale from a single tight-knit team to a multi-team, multi-layered engineering organization without slowing down.

Delivered at DeveloperWeek 2026 Dev Exec World

Transcript

1. The 5 Breaking Points of Engineering Scale How to Evolve Your Team Manish Pandit • GoFundMe DeveloperWeek, Feb 2026
2. Manish Pandit Sr. Director of Engineering, GoFundMe Previously: Meta, Marqeta, Capital One, Netflix About me
3. Why do engineering teams slow down as they grow? Same talent Better tools More engineers ..and velocity dives
4. The scaling myth “Just hire more engineers.”
5. Scaling : Predictable breaking points What works at 10 engineers - breaks at 30 What works at 30 engineers - breaks at 75 What works at 75 engineers - breaks at 150 Almost everything breaks at 300+
6. The 5 breaking points of engineering scale Size Breaking Point ~10 Alignment ~30 Leadership ~75 Autonomy vs. Alignment ~150 Culture and Systems 300+ Platform and Efficiency
7. Before we deep dive: what’s in it for you Know what stage your org is in Anticipate the next breaking point Avoid reactive org and process fixes Scale without losing velocity or culture
8. ~10 engineers: The Alignment Break Decisions happen in pockets Context gets lost People step on each other’s work
9. ~10 engineers: The Alignment Break Shared priorities Basic planning rhythm First tech leads
10. ~30 engineers: The Leadership Break First time managers struggle Execution becomes inconsistent Hiring velocity outpaces onboarding velocity
11. ~30 engineers: The Leadership Break Real EM role definition and clarity Manager Training Clear operating rituals and ways of working
12. ~75 engineers: Autonomy vs. Alignment Teams become silos Architecture breaks Strategy is understood unevenly “We want empowered teams” vs “We need architectural coherence”
13. ~75 engineers: Autonomy vs. Alignment Clear org strategy Cross-team planning Director level leadership
14. ~150 engineers: Culture and Systems Break Culture dilution Slower decisions Quality suffers, and tech debt piles up
15. ~150 engineers: Culture and Systems Break Scalable engineering principles Strong Manager of Managers Deliberate quality and platform investments (20%+)
16. 300+ engineers: Platform and Efficiency Break Duplicate work across teams Fragmented User Experience Slow cross-org initiatives The org structure becomes the product architecture
17. 300+ engineers: Platform and Efficiency Break Platform thinking Shared roadmaps Portfolio level leadership Clear boundaries between Product and Platform teams
18. How to use this framework 1. Identify your current stage. 2. Look at the next breaking point ahead of you. 3. Evolve before it breaks.
19. How to diagnose your stage 1. Where do decisions get stuck? 2. What type of conflict dominates? 3. What layer of leadership is the weakest?
20. Key Takeaways 1. Every org has predictable scale breaks. 2. Most (if not all) scale problems are leadership and system problems, not technical. 3. Evolve intentionally and proactively, not reactively. “What got you here won’t get you there.”
21. Fin. LinkedIn: in/mpandit Slides: speakerdeck.com/mpandit We’re hiring! https://gofundme.com/careers