One remaining aspect of company culture is identifying which team's efforts are particularly emphasized and respected. Each small company holds a unique view of its software development team. Some departments view development as a key company resource and give the team commensurate respect, authority, equipment, space, and flexibility. Management usually treats engineers in startups as heroes, while their development efforts produce the initial products for the marketplace.
As the company grows, a management shift in attitude toward engineering can occur. This shift happens because sales or marketing teams become key drivers of new revenue after development has created the product. When this happens, management does not view the development team as the most important source of innovation and value. Instead, management views development as part of a production organization and as a corporate cost. This shift can lead to team dissatisfaction as engineers see their status diminished.
Management sometimes even considers development engineers as the cause of company problems, such as poor quality products, dissatisfied customers, and slow software releases. These issues can be the result of improperly built software during the startup phase, however.
If senior management treats engineering as merely another corporate expense, you need to advocate for your team. Base the advocacy on real team successes and potential for the future. As you advocate, acknowledge past problems and explain improvements that will prevent them from being repeated. Development teams can be drivers of innovation and profitability, not just sources of order fulfillment.
Spend time at senior staff meetings describing ideas collected from your team to demonstrate the value of developers to the company. Describing team accomplishments at a company meeting is another great approach. Keep up to date on changing company needs, including those driven by the market, because you can use this information to propose revisions to your product roadmap. You can also promote your team by asking developers to help solve problems for other departments—sometimes small efforts by development can be of tremendous help to another group.