Building A Strong Team Culture

In this lesson, Philip shares how he built and maintained a strong engineering culture while launching Meta’s London engineering office. Drawing on lessons from Meta’s Seattle expansion and advice from leaders who had built engineering sites at other companies, he explains how deliberately choosing the right founding team can shape a new office for years to come.

• Learn from other teams before building your own. Philip drew on both mistakes he observed while helping grow Meta Seattle and lessons from experienced site leaders to avoid reinventing the wheel when launching London.
• A committed core team helps preserve culture during rapid growth. Philip believes short three- or six-month landing teams leave too little time to establish a durable culture. Having experienced employees commit for two years provided stability while large numbers of new hires joined.
• Select founding team members for culture, leadership, and technical strength. Philip evaluated nearly 50 volunteers to choose 12 people who understood Meta’s culture, could bring and lead meaningful work, and would help establish strong hiring standards for the new office.