DEV Community

Cover image for How to handle hypergrowth like Grammarly
Conor Bronsdon for LinearB

Posted on • Originally published at devinterrupted.com

How to handle hypergrowth like Grammarly

Grammarly has a simple but ambitious goal: turn all of its users into great writers.

Their product has become synonymous with quality and working professionals the world over depend on the digital writing assistant to improve their grammar, catch spelling mistakes and write engaging content.

Until recently, Grammarly was focused solely on consumers and individuals, but that all changed when they brought Heidi Williams on board. Hired as the new Head of Engineering for B2B and Platform, Heidi knew that in order to keep up with demand her engineering teams would have to enter a hypergrowth phase.

Then the pandemic changed everything. Suddenly, in the midst of gearing up for an explosion of hiring and onboarding, Grammarly found themselves gearing up for the transition to a remote organization instead.

Listen to Heidi as she details Grammarly's sprint to become a remote organization, what it's like to build a product for the world's one billion English speakers and why it's so important to search for engineering talent outside of Silicon Valley.

Episode Highlights Include:

  • Why diverse teams make the best teams
  • Hypergrowth best practices in a remote world
  • How to preserve team culture when you're not in the office
  • Looking for talent outside of Silicon Valley zip codes
  • Building an AI and ML powered writing assistant

Check out a clip from our YouTube channel:

Join the Dev Interrupted Community

With over 2000 members, the Dev Interrupted Discord Community is the best place for Engineering Leaders to engage in daily conversation. No sales people allowed. Join the community >>

https://discord.com/invite/devinterrupted

Top comments (2)

Collapse
 
nobilitypnw profile image
NOBILITYPNW

Heidi seems really with it and I imagine it's an absolute pleasure to work at Grammarly. Her advice on building diverse teams is an example to follow.

Collapse
 
cmcclannahan profile image
cmcclannahan

It's kinda crazy how the pandemic has forced everyone to go remote, but hey, at least it seems like there's an upside to it