Mapped a hub-and-spoke communication topology, surfaced an early burnout signal on the two connectors everyone relied on, and tracked the rebalance into a resilient mesh as their sentiment recovered 2.3 points to about 7.2.
Quanta Labs, a 180-person deep-tech scale-up in Munich, had grown faster than its communication structure. SentiTrack's relationship network graph showed that most teams routed through just two people, a principal engineer and an ops lead, while peers barely talked directly and two new remote hires sat almost isolated at a tone near 4.6. The two connectors carried the load, and their sentiment slid 1.9 points from 6.8 to 4.9, an early key-person-risk and burnout signal. After leadership redistributed ownership, added direct cross-team links, and revamped remote onboarding, the network rebalanced from hub-and-spoke into a mesh with 2.4x more direct cross-team links, the connectors recovered 2.3 points to about 7.2, and the remote hires integrated to about 7.1.
Growth quietly concentrated all communication into two people
Quanta Labs scaled to 180 employees without redesigning how work flowed between teams. In practice, almost every thread eventually passed through the same principal engineer and the same ops lead. They were effective, so people kept routing through them.
That concentration is invisible on an org chart. It does not show up in headcount or delivery metrics until something breaks. Leadership had no way to see that the org's resilience rested on two individuals.
Two recent remote hires made the gap sharper. With no direct lines into the teams, they depended on the same two connectors to get anything done, and their early experience was measurably colder than everyone else's.
What SentiTrack saw
The relationship network graph rendered the topology as a hub-and-spoke shape. The two amber connector nodes carried many edges out to the eight blue team nodes, while those teams barely interconnected. The edges into the hubs were lukewarm, roughly 5.4 to 6.1, transactional rather than warm.
The two violet remote-hire nodes sat on the edge of the graph, each attached by a single weak, cold edge of about 4.3 to 4.4, with an overall tone near 4.6. They were structurally isolated, not merely quiet.
The timeline made the human cost legible. Against a stable team average of about 6.7 to 7.2, the connectors' wellbeing trend fell 1.9 points from 6.8 to 4.9, an early burnout and key-person-risk signal surfaced months before it would have shown up in attrition.
Connector wellbeing fell 1.9 points from 6.8 to 4.9, then recovered 2.3 points to 7.2, against a stable team average of about 6.7 to 7.2; new remote hires rose from about 4.6 to 7.1. Markers: network analysis flags the bottleneck (Mar, detection), ownership redistributed (May), cross-team links added (Jul), remote onboarding revamped (Aug).
Before: a hub-and-spoke network where two amber connector nodes carry many lukewarm edges (about 5.4 to 6.1) to the teams, peers barely interconnect, and two violet remote hires hang off single cold edges (about 4.3 to 4.4). After: a mesh where peers link directly with warm edges (about 7.0 to 7.2), the hubs carry far fewer edges, and the remote hires are integrated by multiple warm edges (about 6.8 to 7.1).
Redistribute ownership and build the missing links
SentiTrack mapped the problem; people acted on it. The detection marker landed in March, when network analysis flagged the bottleneck. In May, leadership redistributed ownership away from the two connectors so the org no longer depended on either as a single point of contact.
In July they deliberately added direct cross-team links, giving peers reasons and channels to talk without a hub in the middle. In August they revamped remote onboarding so new hires were wired into teams from day one rather than through an intermediary.
Progress was reviewed against the data each quarter using SentiTrack's PDF Organisational Resilience Report, which pairs the communication network map with centrality and key-person-risk, the connector wellbeing trend, and an isolation and onboarding watchlist for the leadership offsite.
From a fragile hub-and-spoke to a resilient mesh
The after graph shows the topology rebalanced. Peers now interconnect directly with warm edges of about 7.0 to 7.2, the two hubs carry far fewer edges, and the org runs on 2.4x more direct cross-team links. The two people the whole org once routed through are no longer single points of failure.
The connectors' sentiment recovered 2.3 points from 4.9 to about 7.2 as their load eased, and the once-isolated remote hires integrated with multiple warm edges, rising from about 4.6 to about 7.1.
The quarterly resilience report keeps the structure honest. Leadership now watches centrality and isolation as standing metrics, so the next time communication starts concentrating they see it early rather than after someone burns out.
Shared as a scheduled PDF report
Recipients: CTO, People team, engineering leads
- Communication network map
- Centrality & key-person risk
- Connector wellbeing trend
- Isolation & onboarding watchlist
Each quarter leadership reviewed this SentiTrack PDF — the network map and the key-person-risk ranking — to keep the org from quietly re-centralising as it grew.
We could feel that two people were holding too much, but we could not prove it or point to where. The network graph showed the shape of the problem, and the wellbeing trend showed the cost. That is what got us to act before we lost anyone.
- A hub-and-spoke communication topology is a hidden key-person risk; the network graph made it visible, with two connector nodes carrying most edges while peers stayed unlinked.
- Wellbeing signals can precede attrition: the connectors' sentiment fell 1.9 points from 6.8 to 4.9 months before any visible breakage, giving leadership time to redistribute ownership.
- Structure is fixable by design, not by tooling. Direct cross-team links produced 2.4x more peer connections, recovered connector sentiment 2.3 points to about 7.2, and integrated isolated remote hires from about 4.6 to 7.1.
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