The Software Coordination Tax: Why Your 40-Engineer Team Is Shipping Like 25
The article discusses the concept of the 'coordination tax' in software engineering teams, which refers to the overhead costs associated with adding more engineers. This tax can lead to significant waste in productivity and budget, particularly when teams exceed a certain size. The author argues that the real issue is not a lack of talent, but rather a lack of effective coordination and authority among team members.
- ▪The coordination tax adds 15% to 25% of overhead for each new engineer while only contributing 5% to 10% of output gain.
- ▪In a 30-person team, coordination overhead can result in $900,000 to $1.5 million in annual waste.
- ▪Most CTOs misdiagnose the problem as a talent or tooling issue, when in fact it stems from excessive need for agreement and coordination.
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InnovationThe Software Coordination Tax: Why Your 40-Engineer Team Is Shipping Like 25BySteve Taplin,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)May 20, 2026, 07:45am EDTSteve Taplin is CEO & founder of Sonatafy Technology, a software consulting & engineering firm focused on delivery, quality & accountability GettyMost software engineering leaders think they have a talent problem. After interviewing more than 180 CTOs on my podcast and working with dozens of scaling software organizations, I have come to believe something different. They have a coordination problem.
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