Scaling from 25 to 75, structural transformation in a highly-regulated environment.
In 2021, I joined a 2-year-old startup that functioned with the inertia of a legacy corporation. With 25 FTEs, the balance was heavily skewed toward junior roles, lacking the senior gravity needed for sustainable growth.
The company was disorganized, suffering from fragmented communication and a "satellite" workforce where juniors orbited exclusive senior groups.
COVID-era hiring had left the team quite disconnected. The physical office environment was tedious, and internal structure—specifically in HR, Incident Management and Product Development was non-existent.
To prevent the system from going under, I had to operate on multiple fronts simultaneously. We did not just add "HR", we built a new operating system for the company.
We redefined our employer brand, optimized the hiring funnel, and institutionalized how we treated individuals from the first touchpoint to the last.
In a highly-regulated environment, process isn't optional. I overhauled the entire incident management framework to ensure reliability without sacrificing agility.
We abandoned "loose" practices. We re-shaped the products & formed balanced teams with intentional senior-to-junior ratios and implemented a robust software development lifecycle.
Two years later, the company had transitioned successfully from startup to scaleup.
I left behind a thriving, lively culture. The "simply untangle" philosophy: treating people as adults and fixing the system, not the individuals, was the primary driver of this success. "People at fiskaly are awesome" was a great program showing that thinking differently really makes a difference.