Seeking Advice on Choosing the Right Team Hello everyone, I’m currently at a crossroads in my career and would appreciate any insights or advice. Here’s the context: Background: I work at a company that primarily deals with payroll and HR services for companies. I was originally on the payroll team, which has now been absorbed into a larger payroll, taxes, and payments vertical. Earlier this year, I was loaned out to help another team set up a new service and architecture. Current Situation: Our company underwent reorganization, and my old team is now part of a different department with the same manager but a different director and VP. I recently spoke with my skip-level manager, who praised my work and mentioned that several teams would be happy to have me. I also have the option to stay with the team I’ve been helping recently. Teams Available: Growth Team: Works on tools for prospective customers (estimates, self-enrollment, etc.). Accounting Firm Team: Services accountants who handle payrolls for multiple companies, focusing on admin ops tooling. Payroll Team: My old team. Not sure how things will change post-reorganization, but I had a good relationship with my manager and team. Integrations Team: Handles integrations with multiple product teams. Not too many interesting problems to solve. Leave and Absence Team: Deals with leave/work schedule-related matters (PTO, holidays, work schedule, etc.). This is the team I was loaned to recently. The new manager appreciates my work, and I get along well with the team, although they tend to work slower than I’m used to. Considerations: I feel a strong inclination to stay with the Leave and Absence team due to high visibility and good relationships with the current director and SVP. Career growth and self-fulfillment are important factors in my decision. Question: For those of you who have had to make similar decisions, what type of team did you choose to join and why? Any advice on factors to consider in making this decision? Thank you in advance for your insights! I hope this helps structure your thoughts and gather valuable advice from others.

If possible, I would try to talk to people that work on each of the teams that you are considering. It looks like it'd be 3 teams, since you're on one of them now, and you used to be on one of the other teams. I would try to ask questions about career growth and self-fulfillment to get a sense of how all of the teams compare to each other. A career growth question might be asking how many engineers were promoted within the last year. A self-fulfillment question might be asking about what kind of projects are being worked on. The current team you're loaned to does sound solid, and if there aren't any big reasons to leave that team, there's no shame in staying on the team. Since you're not worried about things that plague bad teams, you can focus on career growth.

What type of team would be best for my career?

Senior Software Engineer at Justworks Labs2 months ago

Senior Engineer

Team Selection

Seeking Advice on Choosing the Right Team

Hello everyone,

I’m currently at a crossroads in my career and would appreciate any insights or advice. Here’s the context:

Background:

I work at a company that primarily deals with payroll and HR services for companies.
I was originally on the payroll team, which has now been absorbed into a larger payroll, taxes, and payments vertical.
Earlier this year, I was loaned out to help another team set up a new service and architecture.

Current Situation:

Our company underwent reorganization, and my old team is now part of a different department with the same manager but a different director and VP.
I recently spoke with my skip-level manager, who praised my work and mentioned that several teams would be happy to have me. I also have the option to stay with the team I’ve been helping recently.

Teams Available:

Growth Team: Works on tools for prospective customers (estimates, self-enrollment, etc.).
Accounting Firm Team: Services accountants who handle payrolls for multiple companies, focusing on admin ops tooling.
Payroll Team: My old team. Not sure how things will change post-reorganization, but I had a good relationship with my manager and team.
Integrations Team: Handles integrations with multiple product teams. Not too many interesting problems to solve.
Leave and Absence Team: Deals with leave/work schedule-related matters (PTO, holidays, work schedule, etc.). This is the team I was loaned to recently. The new manager appreciates my work, and I get along well with the team, although they tend to work slower than I’m used to.

Considerations:

I feel a strong inclination to stay with the Leave and Absence team due to high visibility and good relationships with the current director and SVP.
Career growth and self-fulfillment are important factors in my decision.

Question:

For those of you who have had to make similar decisions, what type of team did you choose to join and why?
Any advice on factors to consider in making this decision?

Thank you in advance for your insights!

I hope this helps structure your thoughts and gather valuable advice from others.

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44 Comments

Discussion

(4 comments)

2
Charlie Vuong
•Eng @ Taro
2 months ago
If possible, I would try to talk to people that work on each of the teams that you are considering. It looks like it'd be 3 teams, since you're on one of them now, and you used to be on one of the other teams. I would try to ask questions about career growth and self-fulfillment to get a sense of how all of the teams compare to each other.

A career growth question might be asking how many engineers were promoted within the last year.

A self-fulfillment question might be asking about what kind of projects are being worked on.

The current team you're loaned to does sound solid, and if there aren't any big reasons to leave that team, there's no shame in staying on the team. Since you're not worried about things that plague bad teams, you can focus on career growth.
2
Alex Chiou
•Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
2 months ago
Always optimize for people. I would much rather join a team full of talented, supportive engineers who have lackluster team scope than a team of toxic engineers who have large, exciting scope.

You are a product of the people around you, both in career and in your personal life. If you surround yourself with good people, you will become a good person, no matter how "unexciting" the team scope may be (and good engineers are adept at creating new exciting scope anyways, so that's not a real problem).

If you really like the people in the "Leave and Absence" team and you're looking for new challenges to tackle, that seems like a good move.

Here's a relevant playlist as well: [Taro Top 10] How To Find A Good Engineering Team And Company
1
Rahul Pandey
•Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
2 months ago
Two other dimensions to consider:

What is the level breakdown of the teams you're considering. Assuming you're trying to get promoted to Staff Engineer, I'd look for a team that has a good mix of junior engineers (you can mentor) and senior+ engineers (who can mentor you).

What is the quality and history of your front-line manager? Ask the manager if/when they've promoted other senior engineers at the company. Share your ambitions with them and ask how it lines up with the work on their team. Amazon VP talks about this here: Here's How To Identify A Superstar Leader
0
Shine Garg
•Mentor Coach for SWEs | Former Staff Software engineer
2 months ago
A few other angles to consider are:

What skills do you want to develop? If you plan to continue working in this domain, what team would be best positioned to help you gain domain and business knowledge that will make you an expert in this field over time?

What's on-call like (or WLB)? For example, the accounting or integrations teams might have a busier pager than 1, 3, and 5.

How do you want to spend your work day? What percentages of time do you want to spend to solve deep technical problems, mentor others, give a direction to the team, etc? Getting clear on this pie chart can make the identification easier.

If all the choices score close to each other, a good front-line manager (Rahul's answer) and healthy team dynamics (Alex's input) are excellent tie-breakers!