How to Grow a
Serverless Team
Sheen Brisals
The LEGO Group
sheenbrisals
▪ Serverless & LEGO
▪ Serverless Struggles
▪ Steps to Grow
▪ Growth Benefits
Growth Agenda
Serverless
cloud computing
execution model
pay for compute
usage & storage
auto-scalable &
highly available
no server
management
What?
an ecosystem of
managed services
granular level
optimisation
ideal for iterative
development
brings engineering
diversity
Why?
LEGO.com was
switched to
Serverless
July 10, 2019
Serverless Struggles
Early adoption
Endless experimentation
start simple iterate, evolve
follow proven patterns
solution first;
perfection next
continuous
improvement
judgmental
can’t take risk
vendor lock-in fear
invest in expansive
processes
wait for a perfect
moment
To Endless Experiments
Pressure
• Internal stakeholders
• External competition
Status
• Maintaining the image
• Legacy tech stack
Customer
• Modern demands
• Loosing loyalty
Hire
Assemble
Build
Dissolve
Hire
Assemble
Build
Dissolve
No
People
Growth
No
People
Growth
No
Team
Growth
No
Org
Growth
No Serverless Growth
Serverless Start
“No one starts perfect with Serverless,
but strive to be better at every iteration,
and that is important.”
Let’s Grow!
1
The Field
Team Environment
Team Environment
organisation
innovative
experimentation
trust
motivation
ownership
responsible
risk taking
self belief
self-govern
fast action
2
The Seed
Pilot Engineer(s)
Pilot Engineer(s)
Attitude
Aptitude architecture
security
programming
passion for tech
hunger to learn
‘can do’
3
The Grower
Team Enabler
Team Enabler
coach
mentor
Role techie
passionate
Characteristics
architect committed
engineer
business
friendly
leader agile
Serverless Enabler
“Serverless adoption is a multi-destination
journey. Start with a good navigator for a
confident ride.”
4
The Nutrients
The Training
certifications
workshops
conferences
lunch &
learn
courses
The Training
podcasts
newsletters
meetups
hackathons
open
source
community
blogs
5
The Growth
The Growth
The Growth best
practices
DevOps
collaboration
serverless
skills
infra
CI/CD
cohesive pairing
Serverless Mind
Serverless requires a "mind-shift" to see the
products as event-driven orchestration of
managed services, knitted with infrastructure
code, to bring the best value
6
The Fruits
The Victories
The Victories
Team Outcome
PoC
MVP
Service in PROD
Trust
Confidence
Respect
Stakeholder Opinion
7
The Maturity
The Awesome Team
The Awesome Team
ownership
culture
community
contributions
engineers as
architects
releases
features
velocity
awesome team
DevOps
practices
Serverless Engineer
“A software engineer who is innovative,
efficient, capable of building secure, cloud
first and cost effective functional solutions
iteratively using managed services.”
8
The Pruning
Trim Distractions
Trim Distractions
Distractions
conflicts of
interest
communication
hurdles
over-engineering
practices
re-invention
mindset
no customer
benefit
no business
value
wandering
tech thoughts
process
overload
low
productivity
complacency always awesome
9
The Renewal
The Retrospective
The Retrospective
tech debt
reduction
technology
uptake
service
refactoring
process
changes
team
adjustments
bonding
activities
training &
workshops
team
hackathon
experts
sessions
10
The Offspring
New Teams
New Teams
awesome team
amazing team
A team
super team
Environment
Engineers
Leader
Training
Growth
Outcome
Team
Benefits
Agile, iterative, and automated serverless
development is like a gravity defying take-off.
Once launched, no stopping!
Serverless Journey
Business Value Growth
Value Acceleration
• Parallel development streams
• MVP first, sophistication next
Fast features
• Automated deployment pipeline
• Multiple daily releases
Rapid releases
• Confidence in the technology
• Trust in the teams
Business
harmony
People Growth
Team Acceleration
Serverless requires a new way of thinking, new way of
working, and new way of running applications. Meaning,
we need to change our way of thinking, our way of
working, and our way of running applications.
Serverless Thinking
full-stack
profile
community
aware
customer
care
organisational
asset
• architecture
• DevOps
• write, talk
• open source
• code camps
• ownership
• on-call
• monitoring
• sharing
• high morale
• efficiency
• value
Accelerated team growth
Technology Growth
Serverless Acceleration
helps to grow high
calibre serverless
competency
helps to keep the tech
stack fresh and
efficient
saves from expensive
and complex legacy
migration cycles
aids to build a secure,
resilient and scalable
ecosystem
If serverless can be the slingshot to give us the
acceleration to win battles and bring value, then
we must accept, adopt and of course, accelerate
to enjoy the true potential of being serverless!
To close…
Go
Grow
Serverless Teams
@sheenbrisals
Thank
You
sbrisals.medium.com

How to Grow a Serverless Team