Tracks/Track 9 — Engineering Leadership/9-2
Track 9 — Engineering Leadership

9-2: Headcount Planning

Model the exact cost of hiring velocity, onboarding drag, and optimal IC-to-Manager ratios.

1 Lessons~45 min

🎯 What You'll Learn

  • Calculate Recruiter friction
  • Manage onboarding velocity drops
  • Execute span-of-control models
Free Preview — Lesson 1
1

The Onboarding Velocity Dip

When you hire 5 new engineers, your team's output does not increase—it plummets. Every new hire requires 2-3 months of intense mentoring from your most senior, productive engineers.

This "Brooks's Law" manifestation means a poorly timed hiring surge just before a critical product launch guarantees the launch will fail. Engineers are pulled off features to explain the codebase architecture to the new hires.

Optimal headcount planning spaces out onboarding cohorts and explicitly factors a 20% velocity tax on senior engineering output for a full 90 days following a hire.

Span of Control (Manager)

The number of direct reports one Engineering Manager handles.

Optimal: 5-8. Too high = breakdown of 1:1 quality
The 90-Day Tax

The temporary velocity drop from senior engineers mentoring new staff.

A pure financial investment against future output
📝 Exercise

Execute a Span-of-Control audit across your technical departments.

Execution Checklist

Action Items

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Inference Architecture
01import { orchestrator } from '@exogram/core';
02
03const router = new AgentRouter({);
04strategy: 'COST_EFFICIENT_SLM',
05fallback: 'FRONTIER_MODEL'
06});
07
08await router.guardrail(payload);
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Module Syllabus

Lesson 1: The Onboarding Velocity Dip

When you hire 5 new engineers, your team's output does not increase—it plummets. Every new hire requires 2-3 months of intense mentoring from your most senior, productive engineers.This "Brooks's Law" manifestation means a poorly timed hiring surge just before a critical product launch guarantees the launch will fail. Engineers are pulled off features to explain the codebase architecture to the new hires.Optimal headcount planning spaces out onboarding cohorts and explicitly factors a 20% velocity tax on senior engineering output for a full 90 days following a hire.

15 MIN
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