The Secret to Scaling Teams from 37 to 1000 Engineers with Ameya Kanitkar
October 14, 2025
What separates good engineers from exceptional leaders? According to Ameya Kanitkar, Co-founder and CTO of Larridin, it’s the ability to scale beyond individual contributions to build teams that create lasting impact. It’s an insight he learned during Groupon’s meteoric rise from 37 to 1000 engineers. In this episode of the Signal to Noise Podcast, Ameya joins Eóin O'Toole, a Managing Partner at Riviera Partners, to dive into scaling engineering teams, the reality of AI adoption in enterprises, and the delicate balance between processes and productivity.
What separates good engineers from exceptional leaders? According to Ameya Kanitkar, Co-founder and CTO of Larridin, it’s the ability to scale beyond individual contributions to build teams that create lasting impact. It’s an insight he learned during Groupon’s meteoric rise from 37 to 1000 engineers. In this episode of the Signal to Noise Podcast, Ameya joins Eóin O'Toole, a Managing Partner at Riviera Partners, to dive into scaling engineering teams, the reality of AI adoption in enterprises, and the delicate balance between processes and productivity.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to transition from building systems to building teams that create systems at scale
- The framework for matching team composition to business needs
- Why ownership is the key differentiator between good and great engineering talent
- How to minimize process overhead while maintaining alignment in both startups and large organizations
- The three-part approach to implementing AI in enterprises
- Why successful AI adoption requires balancing technological capability with human-centered change management
Ameya Kanitkar is the Co-founder and CTO of Larridin, a Bay Area-based startup building an organizational fitness platform powered by AI. With vast experience scaling engineering teams at major tech companies, he previously led consumer trading engineering at Coinbase and built unified data analytics systems at LinkedIn. During his tenure at Groupon, he played a key role in the company's hyper-growth phase, helping scale from 37 to 1000 engineers.
Eóin O'Toole is a Managing Partner at Riviera Partners, with over 16 years of experience in the executive search industry. In his role, he leads Riviera's Venture-backed practice, which focuses on the unique talent and expertise needs of emerging companies, from concept through go-to-market and emerging growth phases. As a former CEO and founder himself, Eóin is passionate about helping clients build their dream teams and enabling talent to reach their full potential.
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