Designing a high-performing growth team is as much about cross-functional collaboration as it is about individual roles. Growth thrives at the intersection of product, data, engineering, and marketing – so your team structure should reflect that.
👥 Org Design & Reporting Lines
Small startups typically start with a single growth lead or PM working alongside a product designer and part-time engineering support. This “pod” model allows for fast iteration without heavy process.
Growth-stage companies often evolve to include:
A Growth PM who owns the experimentation roadmap
One or more Growth Engineers (often embedded in a product team or in a dedicated squad)
A Data Analyst to support test design, metric tracking, and analysis
Cross-functional support from marketing, design, and lifecycle/CRM specialists
Reporting depends on company culture. Some teams report into Product, others into Marketing or a hybrid Growth organisation. What matters most is autonomy: growth teams should be empowered to ship, test, and learn quickly.
✅ Best Practices
Treat growth as a cross-functional team, not a silo.
Ensure access to shared design, engineering, and data resources.
Create clear ownership of funnel stages (e.g., activation, retention).
Use shared KPIs to avoid channel or departmental turf wars.
🔍 Hiring Growth Engineers & PMs
Great growth engineers are product-minded developers who love solving problems with experimentation, not just shipping features. Look for:
Strong fluency in product and user psychology
Comfort with analytics tools, SQL, and A/B test design
Ability to ship quickly and independently
Curiosity and resilience – they’re often working in ambiguous, high-velocity environments
When hiring Growth PMs, prioritise:
Obsession with impact and experimentation velocity
Clear communication and stakeholder alignment
Fluency in metrics and the scientific method
Comfort working with engineers and analysts in detail
A well-structured growth team is cross-functional, autonomous, and accountable to key metrics. Whether you’re hiring your first growth PM or scaling a dedicated team, the priority is finding people who thrive at the intersection of product, data, and experimentation – and empowering them to move fast with clear ownership and minimal friction.