How to build your own dev team

4 min readAug 6, 2015

One of the biggest challenges of creating your tech startup is building and managing the team behind the product.

In first place, good and talented people are hard to find. Knowing where to look for, identifying roles you need and understanding how to integrate new members to the team are some limitations you will find in the process.

Secondly, once you find the right people, you need to increase their motivation. That’s what capable people need to maintain their interest and grow properly inside your startup.

Now that you have all the pieces, it’s time to decide how to build the puzzle for the team to work in the best possible way. Without that, you will end up with a group of skilled people with no common horizon following personal objectives that don’t improve the team.

Where should I start?

As first objective, you should be able to identify which kind of developers you are looking for.

Are you in search of a gifted dev who knows how to program in many languages?
Are you looking for a CTO who can take charge of the technology without losing focus on the business?

Remember that no one is perfect in every way, sometimes you will have to adapt your needs:

A great programmer could be sloppy defining priorities or managing other devs.
A good project leader with business background may be lazy when coding without the help of other programmers.

That’s why it’s important to build a solid team.

Which roles should I look for?

Most of the times a strong development team is made of:

Back-End developer: In charge of designing the bases and developing the core of your app. Is the one who takes responsibility for everything to behave and scale in a proper way. It’s important that he has experience, but you should not forget to add a junior dev to do the simpler tasks. (A software engineer is perfect for this position)
Front-End Developer: They integrate the design & interface with the user. This role is important because of the diversity of devices out there (cellphones, tablets, pcs) and browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc). Building responsive interfaces that work everywhere are complex and time consuming tasks.
UI/UX Designer: Not necessary a dev. They are the ones who design the interface taking special care in usability & aesthetics.
Product Manager: A born leader. In charge of managing the team to execute every task in a timely manner. Is the one who grabs the project from the very beginning and transforms it into a full developed Product with the help of the whole team.

How to motivate the team?

Motivate a tech team is not a simple mission. This is why it’s very important to understand their needs and interests.

Young people are motivated by technology, they want to learn and constantly incorporate new knowledge. If the product does not challenge them the way they need, you should look for some alternatives like hackathons oriented to experiment with new technologies , even if that’s not directly related to your product.

It’s well known that devs hate bureaucracy. Paperwork and over-control might end their motivation and creativity. It’s more effective to assign responsibilities and work under crystal clear & well defined objectives.