Of the various teams I have managed, I am going to share a specific example of managing 14 engineers split into two teams: one in the US and one in the EU. On paper, it made sense; time zones aligned, clear ownership. In reality, it was creating inefficiencies, knowledge silos, and limiting our ability to scale. Here’s the story of how we reorganized around functions instead of geography, and why it changed everything.

The Hidden Costs of Geographic Organization

When I inherited this structure, both teams were working on 2 different product offerings and were divided by deployment types. The problems weren’t immediately obvious:

Duplicated Effort: We had shared backend services but duplicated frontend codebases. Both teams were solving similar UI problems independently.

Knowledge Silos: The US team became experts in cloud deployment challenges, while the EU team specialized in on-premise installation issues. Cross-pollination was minimal.

Scaling Bottlenecks: When we needed to add features that affected both versions, coordination became a nightmare. Simple changes required alignment across teams, time zones, and different technical contexts.

Career Development Limits: Engineers were pigeonholed into either “cloud” or “on-premise” specialists, limiting their growth opportunities.

The Platform Migration Catalyst

The breaking point came when our Platform team announced a migration to unified K8s infrastructure. Suddenly, the technical barriers between cloud and on-premise were dissolving. Both versions could share not just backend services, but frontend code too.

This migration forced me to ask: If our technology stack is converging, why is our team structure diverging?

The Functional Reorganization Strategy

I proposed splitting the teams by function instead of geography:

Platform & Infrastructure Team (6-7 people)

Ownership:

• K8s deployment and orchestration
• Shared infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines
• Performance monitoring and reliability
• Developer tooling and automation

Why this mattered: This team could work closely with the central Platform team, becoming force multipliers for infrastructure improvements across both product versions.

Product Engineering Team (7-8 people)

Ownership:

• Shared frontend and backend features
• Core product functionality and user experience
• Product analytics and experimentation
• Customer-facing API development

Why this mattered: This team could focus on what users actually care ; functionality, reliability, and user experience without being constrained by deployment considerations.

Implementation: The Transition Strategy

Reorganizing teams isn’t just about drawing new org charts. Here’s how we managed the transition:

Phase 1: Before anyone changed teams, we implemented knowledge-sharing sessions:

• Cloud engineers taught on-premise deployment challenges
• On-premise engineers shared enterprise customer requirements
• Backend engineers walked frontend teams through shared services

Phase 2: Gradual Migration instead of a big-bang reorganization:

• Started with volunteer transfers based on interest and skills
• Created temporary “bridge” roles for people working across both teams
• Maintained old structure for critical maintenance work

Phase 3: Full Implementation (Month 5-6)

• Formalized new team charters and responsibilities
• Established new communication rhythms and ceremonies
• Created clear escalation paths and decision-making frameworks

The Results: Metrics That Mattered

Six months after the reorganization:

Technical Improvements:

• 40% reduction in duplicate code across frontend applications
• 60% faster feature deployment (shared infrastructure meant one deployment process)
• 25% improvement in system reliability (dedicated platform team focus)

Team Effectiveness:

• 50% reduction in cross-team coordination overhead
• Engineers reporting higher job satisfaction (more diverse work, clearer career paths)
• Faster onboarding for new hires (clearer specialization areas)

Business Impact:

• Faster time-to-market for features affecting both product versions
• Reduced maintenance burden (shared codebase = single place to fix bugs)
• Better customer experience consistency across deployment types

When Geographic Teams Still Make Sense

Functional organization isn’t always the answer. Geographic teams work well when:

• Regulatory Requirements: Different regions have different compliance needs
• Customer Proximity: Local teams serve local customers with specific cultural or language requirements
• Truly Independent Products: When products share nothing but a brand name

In our case, the product was being unified. The reorganization aligned team structure with technical reality.

Key Lessons for Your Reorganization

Start with the Technology Architecture: Your team structure should mirror your system architecture. If your systems are converging, your teams probably should too.

Involve the Team in Design: The engineers doing the work have the best insights into inefficiencies. Include them in designing the new structure.

Plan for the Transition: Reorganization isn’t a one-day event. Plan for knowledge transfer, temporary overlaps, and gradual role changes.

Measure the Impact: Track both technical metrics (deployment frequency, bug resolution time) and human metrics (job satisfaction, retention, growth opportunities).

Communicate the “Why”: Be clear about the problems you’re solving. “We’re reorganizing” is scary. “We’re eliminating duplicate work so you can focus on more interesting problems” is motivating.

The Broader Organizational Impact

This reorganization didn’t just affect my teams, it changed how other engineering groups thought about structure. When you prove that functional organization can work across time zones and product variants, you give other leaders permission to make similar changes.

The meta-lesson: Sometimes the biggest impact you can have as a leader isn’t solving today’s problems, but redesigning the system so tomorrow’s problems don’t occur.

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Have you successfully reorganized an engineering team? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them? Share your experiences in the comments.