Building fast without breaking culture

Most engineering teams hit a wall as they grow. The speed, the ownership, and the culture that made them great—it all gets harder to hold on to. Headcount doubles, time zones multiply, and the thing that made you fast starts to feel fragile.

Ashley Firth has been building through that tension for almost a decade. As one of Octopus Energy's founding engineers, he helped the global team grow from a four-person startup to a multi-national organisation—and kept the culture intact along the way. Now, as Global Director of Engineering, he has sharp, specific views on what works, what breaks, and where most leaders go wrong.