Services Engineering Leadership

Level up your
development team

A program for continuous growth

We work with software teams of all shapes and sizes to instill a culture of learning and growth, then design and implement a system for continuous improvement, positioning them for sustained success.

Developers thrive in organizations that care about their professional growth. But if you want a team that’s committed to relentless improvement, caring isn’t enough. You need a system.

You know your team needs to keep improving to stay ahead, but balancing growth initiatives with daily workflow is a challenge. Our program converts this impertative for constant improvement from a nagging source of stress into a legitimate competitive advantage.

With a system in place, you’ll know with confidence that your team is on an upward trajectory, rather than just hoping they are. And while the competition scrambles to hire better developers, the team you already have just keeps honing their craft, expanding their knowledge, and shipping features.

How it works

We custom-design a program to suit your team’s specific characteristics and needs, selecting tactics from four major growth areas:

Skills + Practices
Tools + Processes
Mindset + Workflow
Management + Leadership

Here’s sample of a program outline for a typical mid-sized software team:

GROWTH AREA → TACTICS
Skills + practices →
Workshops

Mentoring

Pairing sessions

Custom courseware
Tools + processes →
Tools assessment

Code hygeine

IDE customization
Mindset + workflow →
Process tuning

Mindset coaching

Time management training
Management + leadership →
Hiring process design

Team structure assessment

Executive coaching

How we can help you

If you’re a startup company, we can help you implement a highly-effective hiring and onboarding process, establish and convey coding standards and development workflows, and coach you through process of managing it all.

If you’re a SME undergoing digital transformation, we can help you assess your developers' skillsets, evaluate and improve your team structure, optimize workflows and deployment pipelines, and streamline your product roadmap.

If you’re a non-profit organization without a development team, we can help familiarize you with the software development process, assess the capacity of your internal team, make key tech stack and infrastructure decisions, and establish criteria for selecting agencies and consultants.

If you’re a solo SaaS founder, software hobbyist, or a developer with a burgeoning side project, we can help benchmark your skillset, establish a curriculum for your growth, and instill the growth mindset that will serve you as your company evolves.

If you’re not the one in charge, but you know you need to grow as a software developer, we can help you pitch our service to your boss.

Program phases

Phase 0: Fit assessment Over a series of discussions between our leadership and yours, we speak candidly about whether or not we're a good fit to work together, how to get the most out of the program, and what success looks like. Duration: Typically 2-3 weeks, depending on availability

Phase 1: Discovery You pull back the curtain and we learn as much as we can about your team, utilizing various disciplines from our Discovery toolbox. Depending on the size of your team and other factors, we may recommend a full Discovery and Planning engagement for this phase. Duration: Typically 4-6 weeks

Phase 2: Program Design You pull back the curtain and we learn as much as we can about your team, using various disciplines from our Discovery toolbox. Depending on the size of your team and other factors, we may recommend a full Discovery and Planning engagement for this phase. Duration: Typically 2-4 weeks

Phase 3: Implementation We methodically put the program into play, keeping you closely advised on our progress. At the conclusion of the phase, we work together to make a plan for Phase 4. Duration: Typically 3-18 months, but varies greatly based on team size, goals, and other factors

Phase 4: Sustained Growth On a cadence established at the conclusion of Phase 3, we provide ongoing teaching, leadership, and support for your teams growth. In addition to the pre-established touchpoints, we provide established “office hours” where your team can get ad hoc support and assistance from our team. Duration: As long as you need us

Disciplines

Developer mentoring and training
Development workshops
Development process tuning
Team structure analysis
Technical advising
Hiring assistance
Leadership coaching

“ Working with Tighten has energized our team and enabled us to significantly improve the cadence and quality of our code delivery. Their positive influence on our development culture has been profound and lasting.”