Building a dev team is one of the things that is perceived to be much easier than it is actually. I have seen dozens of nontechnical founders trying to find individual freelancers themselves and build dev teams from grown-ups. Unfortunately, in 90% of cases, they have high talent churn and an extremely messy product. When I come to such projects, the first question I raise is, “Do we wanna throw our product and start from scratch or try to support it?”.
As a non-technical founder of a tech company, you may consider working with an agency. However, if your goal is to establish your own tech startup, outsourcing the dev team is not an option. A well-structured and competent dev team will be your competitive edge, surpassing the value of the product itself.
In my career, I have spent two years working in a top Upwork agency and then three years building a startup myself and helping other founders build their dev teams as a consultant. The #1 reason people come to me is their struggles with building a dev team. Most people are looking for a quick fix, but there is no such thing. Building a great dev team will take months, not years, and in this article, I will explain what your journey will look like during that period. Patience and perseverance are key in this process, as building a competent dev team is a marathon, not a sprint.
Stage 1. Unknown strangers
While building a dev team, your connections are the only thing that matters. You probably have no great engineers in your contacts, so you would need to start looking for such. Unfortunately, there is no way to ensure they are great without working with them for some time. You can organize extensive interviews and give them a test project. It will help but won’t save you from taking them on a trial period. In addition, you still want to build your product; even if an engineer is average, you may not have another option.
A popular place to look for developers is freelance marketplaces like Upwork and Fiver. They provide no quality verification services, and there are thousands of developers. By statistics, only 1 out of 30 devs you meet on Upwork will be an A player you are looking for, so you would need to interview all of them and make a guess. This process of finding the right talent can be time-consuming and challenging, but it is a crucial step in building a competent dev team.
You will most probably end up hiring 1 to 2 or even three engineers and sticking with them for some time to evaluate their skills and make some progress on product development. In one month, you will see that one of them is not trustworthy, and you will replace him with a new engineer. The process started, and now your main goal is to find a player who will become your team lead / CTO.
If you get lucky, you can find him very quickly; in the worst case, you will get stuck with an average dev team and high churn for an extended team. You will introduce processes like weekly planning, daily standups, time tracking, and demos. Everyone on your team will be a stranger, and you will be a leader. Very soon, you will realize that managing them is not what you imagined when you started a business, and some people can do it much better for a pretty low price, so you’re going to hire a project manager.
Common characteristics of stage 1 team:
- High team churn
- Low trust
- No project management
- Nonpredictable timelines
- Poor execution with bugs
Stage 2. Team of strangers
Transitioning from Stage 1 to Stage 2 is a significant milestone in the evolution of your dev team. The main characteristics of Stage 1 and Stage 2 are low trust and extremely poor communication. However, once you find a project manager, introduce a project management tool, configure the communication tool, and add development processes, you are ready to enter Stage 2. This transition is marked by improved communication, better team cohesion, and a more structured work environment.
Your work is well structured, and now you can easily iterate and evaluate talents when they join your project. At this stage, a project manager usually handles 90% of the work, and the business owner's job is to guide the development on a weekly basis.
Every month starts with roadmap planning, where you choose the trajectory of the company. A good practice is getting a technical advisor on board who can help you make the right decisions at this stage. You have no trusted members on your team yet, so it is important to verify that you are going in the right direction.
The advisor will prepare a roadmap and break down all features into smaller tasks with specifications and acceptance criteria attached. Your team will then take over and start the development, while the project manager will make sure all requirements are met and the project is on rails.
Every week, probably on Friday, you will get a progress demo, during which the team will present their progress. After the demo, you will have a chance to express your feedback and suggestions on how to improve the team structure.
To ensure everyone is working properly, you will introduce time trackers and estimation. People who do not have precise estimates and who have low activity will soon leave the team, and you will eventually find the one.
Common characteristics of stage 2 team:
- High team churn
- Low trust
- Established project management
- Somehow predictable timelines
- Acceptable execution
Stage 3. Trustable stranger
Trust is a crucial element in any successful team, and it becomes even more important as your dev team evolves. One day, you will notice that our newly hired engineer performs much better than everyone you ever hired. When he is talking to you, he asks the right questions, and you get precisely what you envisioned when executing. Sooner or later he will start advising other team members and taking more and more responsibilities on his shoulders. You notice that he can become a great leader and start trusting him as a business partner. This trust is a key factor in the team's success and your startup's growth.
While evolving to stage 3, you feel like things are finally going to get stable, but that is not the case. After proposing your newly acquired A player stop tracking time and join the team as a team leader, he is going to change the team in a better direction. First of all, there will be no more need for a project manager because it is highly probable your tech partner will decide to fire 80% of the team and bring some of his friends or past colleagues.
A project manager is needed for teams that don’t have a team leader or a CTO. When a team is small, and everyone is dedicated and has good communication skills, the team will self-manage. Your team lead will take over the project management and suggest new hires and fires.
Common characteristics of stage 3 team:
- High team churn
- High trust in a single team member
- Established project management
- Somehow predictable timelines
- Good execution
Stage 4. Trustable team
In a couple of months, you will find yourself in a position where you finally closed the label “Hiring” on LinkedIn and started to concentrate on delivering the best possible product to your customers. Now, you work with a team like partners, and you trust every word they say. If something is taking longer than expected, you understand that it is no one mistake; sometimes, things may go longer.
Building a trustable team needs luck and a set of correct processes. It would be best if you made sure the team trusts you and they trust each other. Team building activities will help to do that. For example, our team plays the Bobble League in Discord every day after the daily meeting. It is the time when we meet not as colleagues but as friends. Trustable teams have bounds bigger than money and jobs; they spend free time together and are loyal to the company and each other.
Once the trustable team is built, you must ensure no one leaves. Organize consistent one-on-one and make sure everyone is satisfied with their salary and has no internal conflicts with each other.
Common characteristics of stage 4 team:
- No team churn
- High trust in the team
- Established project management
- Predictable timelines
- Good execution
Conclusion
Building an excellent dev team takes time. If you get lucky, you can do it in as little as 2-3 months, but it will take at least one year on average. Some people never achieve stage 4 and stay forever on stage 2. If you want to build a successful tech startup, you have to reach level 4. If your business is more content—or community-oriented, stage 2 will be enough for you.
In the end, if you can not find a trustworthy person who can work with you full-time, at least get a fractional CTO or consultant who will ensure quality execution.