Engineering Culture and Team Dynamics in a Challenging Climate

The Industry Perspective Q1 2025

We are pleased to publish the first research-based industry report from Human-Centric Engineering.

During Q4 of 2024, we interviewed eight industry leaders to better understand the approaches being taken in the field to create the cultural environment for high-performing software engineering teams to do their best work in demanding roles against a backdrop of uncertainty and turmoil within the tech industry.

It’s easy to come up with theories, ideas and models for cultivating great engineering teams but translating these into principles and practices that produce results in the field is never straightforward. Teams and organisations are complex adaptive systems which do not react in predictable ways to standardised interventions, no matter how well-intentioned.

We applaud our participants, not only for the sincerity and thoughtfulness with which they are applying themselves to the challenges of engineering leadership but also for kindly sharing their experiences with us so that we can share wisdom with others in the industry.

The discussions and analysis are available in a PDF here which we encourage you to read as an indispensable guide to engineering leadership, rich with practical ideas for nurturing humane cultures where engineers can make their deepest contributions.

Topics and Questions

The questions we explored with our participants were:

1. Why engineering culture/team dynamics
   Why do you pay attention to engineering culture and team dynamics, what benefits does it bring to you, the team, or the business?

2. Current initiatives
   What are you working on at the moment, if anything, to improve the culture or team dynamics?

3. Success stories
   What are some wins or successes you’ve had? What would you definitely try again in a new role?

4. Challenges
   What are some challenges or drag factors you have faced or are facing?
   Is the current economic climate and industry environment having a negative effect on your culture and morale?

5. Measurements and metrics
   How do you measure the impact and effectiveness of “culture”/people-focused initiatives?
   - In terms of measuring the culture itself and engineer sentiment
   - In terms of tangible outcomes that the business understands

Key Findings

This is a summary of the key findings from the report. For further context and analysis, download the full report here.

The magic of getting it right is hard to describe

All of the interviewees have experienced the ‘magic’ of an engineering culture that is working well. Yet it’s that very sense of magic that reveals the largest challenge. After all, what is magic? Magic is something that we can’t easily explain. Although we intuitively know there’s a connection, it’s hard to categorically link cause and effect. And so it's hard - if not impossible - to define a recipe to follow and explain it to others.

Doing the analysis of the research for this report has been challenging for this reason. There isn’t a shared common language. There are no discernable ‘best practices’ to follow. There isn’t a checklist for building a great culture or a simple formula for connecting it to revenue.

As evidenced by the conversations we had, team dynamics and engineering culture are undeniably situational, and there’s no single ideal approach for all companies and teams.

In short, it’s hard work.

Engineering culture is the strongest leverage point

Despite acknowledging the hard work and the challenges involved, focusing on engineering culture and the human aspects of software development was recognised as being more than worth the effort.

Working on the culture is seen as the most powerful, upstream lever available. Starting with the hearts and minds to bring people together who want to work together for a specific purpose. If you can improve that, everything downstream becomes easier.

Strong culture protects against a challenging climate

As well as binding people together with a meaningful focus on delivering work, a good culture can provide respite and stability during challenging times in the macro environment. Indeed, various leaders we spoke to said that their teams were largely grateful for the culture that they had.

This indicates that a focus on culture can reduce the stress and anxiety caused by a challenging macro environment. And it’s not too far a stretch to suggest that in addition to making the workplace more humane, reducing stress and anxiety helps to increase focus and productivity.

Use patterns, proxies, and trends for continuous improvement

As there are no standard measures or metrics, what we found is that people work with proxies. There is a wide variety in these proxies based on what the leader can track or observe, and the current focus of the team. These proxies range from pulse surveys on sentiment, to tracking the number of opportunities for juniors to speak to senior leadership, to observing how frequently teams choose to have lunch together.

The common factor to these proxies is looking for patterns and trends, to be observant and adaptive. The focus is less about the “number” on the metric, but more about the direction and degree of change, as well as the conversations that emerge from the data.

Common areas of focus that have contributed to success

Although there is no standard language or framework for talking about engineering culture, it does help to break it down into more relatable concepts. A few common themes emerged from our conversations with the leaders.

Prioritise intrinsic motivation

Focus on intrinsic motivation, individual and collective, to generate energy and momentum. A useful way to think about intrinsic motivation is to break it down into mastery, autonomy, and purpose - the three components of Self-Determination Theory.

Challenge embedded thinking

It’s easy to fall into ruts and patterns of thinking and behaviour - the things you just get used to when working in a certain place. But to grow and change it’s important to challenge these patterns. This can be done internally with workshops and retrospectives on how work is done, improving team reflexivity. The introduction of fresh eyes through new hires, coaches, or consultants is also a useful approach.

Foster psychological safety

Build relationships between individuals and teams, building shared levels of familiarity and camaraderie, as it will help in times of trouble. Embrace supportive candour, avoiding the ‘nice trap’, to ensure that people can challenge one another directly but compassionately. Model the behaviours you wish to see in the team.

Include the employee

Look at the entire employee lifecycle, from recruitment all the way to departure; it’s not just about how the work is done. Culture is a collective effort, both shaped and experienced by the everyday actions and interactions of everyone in the team; be sure to listen to the voice of the engineers.

It’s too niche for pure HR

Acknowledge that engineering culture is different from the wider company culture - it’s a domain-specific subculture. Pure HR-lead initiatives tend to miss the mark for engineers, which is why engineering leaders need to step up and take ownership.

Thank You

We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to the participants in our research, namely (ordered by interview date):

Rob West
Head of Engineering at Smoove and Transformational Coach

Toby O’Rourke
CTO at FundApps

Seemin Suleri
VP of Engineering at Prima

James Osborn
Director of Engineering at Just Eat Takeaway,
Mentor & Coach

Terry Brown
Senior Director of Engineering at Mews

Peter Gillard-Moss
Technology Leader at DeepL, ex-Thoughtworks

Andy Skipper
Founder at CTO Craft

Mita Patel
CTO at VoCoVo

Sponsorship

We would also like to thank the sponsors of this report, Evolution Recruitment Solutions, who through the thoughts shared by James Dyson gave a perspective on the importance of engineering culture with regard to talent attraction and retention.

Future Industry Perspective Reports

Our next research-based report will be inquiring into the human impact of AI in engineering ecosystems. If you would like to see what’s coming up, sign up for future reports, or perhaps be interviewed and participate in future reports, head to The Industry Perspective on our website.