From Planning to Scaling: How to Build Your Tech Team Successfully

You have a scaling idea of your tech team. You are not alone, 80 percent of CIOs are intending to use more onshoring or nearshoring within the next 3 years, as compared to 63 percent in 2022. The thing is, however, that not all scaling endeavors are hits. Some of the challenges that many CTOs encounter include skill shortages, talent shortages, and salary increases that eventually slow down delivery and derail your roadmap. We have designed this practical guide on how to build a tech team to assist you to circumvent these traps. It unites the best practices, pitfalls to avoid, and steps that you can begin implementing as you continue expanding your team. We have been scaling engineering teams of over 120 companies and based on our experience, we compiled tips to help you hire the right talent, establish the right structure as well as scale without slowing down the process. Dive in to explore!

Before you reach out to candidates, or nearshore outsourcing companies, you must know:

• What is the nature of the product you are creating?
• How to create a tech team that fits your business?
• What are your current roles and skills requirements? Which will you need in 6-18 months? In this stage, you determine the competencies you require, the best organization, the most important functions and the time frame you need to sustain your product and engineering strategies. This planning can ensure that you make no ill decisions, you do not over-hire or lose key talent.

Visualize: You have a technical team, which is getting ready to dive into the software production, and you cannot delegate them tasks since you have not defined your goals. Scaling of your tech unit is essential to be planned. At this point, we want to concentrate on three issues:

• Business goals. What goals must the product attain? As an example, you construct tech team to deliver features faster, more stabilized in the digital transformation, higher conversion, reduced costs, etc.
• Product vision. What precisely are you going to construct within the 6-12 months and what is the rationale?
• Technical priorities. What engineering activities do these objectives allow? (code quality, security including zero trust practices, performance, infrastructure, debt, and architecture). You have to tie these together into a straight line: Goal - Solution - Building a tech team.

What are the important roles you are seeking? What can you do to speed up your roadmap through the creation of tech teams? Begin with fundamentals:

• Important positions. Who are you actually required: backend, frontend, mobile, QA, DevOps, data, PM/PO depending upon your product and priorities.
• Responsibilities. Describe what is owned by each position and what KPIs demonstrate the best.
• Reporting lines. Determining who makes technical decisions, who reviews code, who ensures quality and how the process of escalation.
• Team format. Select the type of structure that fits your pace of delivery: squads, feature teams, cross-functional teams, or an old school vertical structure.

Within Your Company: Your staff of engineers operates outside the walls of your company. Advantages:

• The highest degree of control over the processes
• A high level of cultural fit
• Employee engagement is high Disadvantages:
• Hiring and retention are very expensive
• Local pool is limited
• It takes too long to hire (usually 2-4+ months) Nearshore: You contract developers in the adjacent countries of time zone, through a provider. Pros:
• It is cheaper than in the local market
• The whole or significant overlap with the working hours
• Availability of a vast pool of specialized talent
• Faster hiring: typically there is 2-6 weeks to lose real-time communication Best suited to: Companies that are interested in a balance between speed, cost, and control without compromising on real-time communication. Offshore: The branch of the dev is situated in remote areas (Asia, Africa, etc.). Advantages:
• Can save the highest number of costs
• Pool of software engineers is very large
• It is easy to grow quickly Disadvantages:
• Time-zone disconnects can occur
• Software may not be used in the products where real-time is essential
• It is harder to maintain real-time quality control Hybrid: Combination of building tech team in-house and nearshore and offshore in any combination. Advantages:
• Scaleable
• Provides good cost-speed-control balance
• Multi-time-zone coverage
• Retain core decisions and architecture within an internal squad
• Scale development offshore/nearshore Disadvantages:
• More complex coordination
• More cost-speed-control balance is needed

As a technology company, not only are you aiming to recruit a technical team but also to ensure that they are productive at the very outset. In order to do that, you must have a clear, systematic plan: in the case you hire, with whom you hire, how you onboard, and what are your measures of success. Our clients can use a straightforward roadmap, which includes the following steps: Schedule the construction of a tech team: Break it down into stages: sourcing, screening, tech interview, offers. Add a 1-2-week buffer for delays. Establish requirements and assessment criteria Spell out the stack, seniority, soft skills, role duties and anticipated KPIs after 90 days. Plan the first 2-4 weeks Prepare onboarding: access, dev environment, documentation, mentoring, first tasks, and expectations. Starting with clear expected results Being your partner in assembling the tech team, we intend to make the team part of the roadmap and enable you to assimilate team members to ensure the team functions like your in-house engineers. Predefined performance objectives Time-to-productivity, code quality, task speed, communication activity, and process compliance. Check-ins Schedule Week 1, day 30, day 60, day 90: normal progress and expectation check and readjustments.

Diversify your recruitment channels, whether that be referral or niche job boards, and IT communities are time-consuming, particularly when you need to recruit tech talent or are recruiting in thin stacks, in an AI, IoT, embedded, cloud, or DevOps role. The other danger you face is sifting through heaps of unsuitable applicants or recruiting the wrong candidate because you cannot meet the right ones easily. Conversely, having a partner means that you will have access to a pre-vetted pool of engineers, even in rare or highly specific skills. You will get the first relevant profiles within 24-48 hours and can develop your team within 2-6 weeks rather than months of hiring internally. We conduct a procurement, researching, technical and cultural assessment, and all administration and retention. You get engineers as part of your processes and as under your complete control, meaning. It will be YOUR team, all of them committed to your domain, processes and culture. The idea of nearshoring will provide you with a true competitive edge:

• 200K evaluated engineers in Europe and Latin America
• Relevant profiles within 24-48 hours and do not spend time sorting unqualified profiles
• Full staff, in 2-6 weeks, rather than months of in-house recruitment
• Confirmed technical and cultural fit, minimizing the threat of irrelevant applicants
• You retain the engineers but the provider recruits, administers, retains and infrastructure

So as to put together a great team, you must not only consider technical capabilities but also the way the individual thinks, collaborates with others and approaches real-life challenges. In this case, the most effective solution would be to use a combination of a number of techniques: technical interviews, live coding, architecture scenarios, problem solving, team simulators. When you are establishing technology teams using a nearshore supplier, much of this is already addressed. You will find pre-vetted engineers that had proven skills, good English, and good culture fit. This is time-saving, as it will just be necessary to conduct the final interviews and select a high-fit shortlist.

When you are ready to proceed with a software engineer, you need to make a competitive offer within a short amount of time and legally prepare all documents related to the contract, terms of cooperation, security policies and transfer of intellectual property. Such legal issues as labor laws, taxes, data protection, and NDAs may consume a considerable amount of time and give place to error. With a nearshore partner you can do everything easier to build tech-team: contracts, compliance, IP and administration are taken care of by your partner, you can remain concentrated on team integration and roadmap.

Companies that designed effective onboarding programs boost productivity of new group members by up to 70 percent, and retention by 82 percent, than companies with disorganized schemes. Onboarding must be transparent and predictable to ensure that a new engineer can get productive within the shortest time possible: the availability of ready resources, technical documentation, the first assignments, a mentor, frequent check-ins, and clear expectations within the first 30, 60, and 90 days. The provider will be able to accelerate the adaptation process through the experience of nearshore partnership processes, effective communication, mentorship, and advice throughout the whole collaboration. This increases your workload being a lead and makes new team members become productive in a shorter time.

A high performing IT team will operate as a well-lubricated machine that has established flow of information, constant feedback and open-door procedures. Agile practices go a long way towards this: brief iterations, standups (daily), retrospectives and regular alignment of your teams. In constructing tech team, apply contemporary such tools as Jira, Slack, GitHub Projects, and Notion, as well as maintain a consistent communication cadence by standups, planning, demos and retros. This gives the unit a narrow track, addresses problems swiftly and makes all on track.

Good engineers remain when they perceive actual development. Therefore, in case of creating tech teams, ensure that learning becomes a part of the work that the engineers are doing. This involves frequent up-skilling, mentorship and access to learning materials such as courses, conferences and internal knowledge-sharing workshops. Clearly defined growth paths are also known to guide the engineers on where they are moving and what they should master at a particular time. By scaling with a good provider, your engineers will be part of a community of peers: a network of peers that share similar practices, knowledge sharing, and lives to support the growth of the other. Such environment maintains the level of motivation and makes your engineers grow quicker and longer.

The greater autonomy is granted to your developers, the greater participation and the performance level. Let individuals have room to make decisions and make wins visible since it improves morale, speed, and quality of the code directly. Reward performance, both personal and organizational. The culture can be developed using such simple measures as demos, performance highlights, public feedback, or a swift thank-you in the chat.

How can companies size tech teams and not compromise quality? It is best to begin with following the fundamentals of delivery such as the frequency of deployment, lead time, failure rate and recovery time (DORA). To measure team health, monitor test, code, engagement, stress, code-review, merge and communication quality (SPACE). With a nearshore model of assembling a tech team, you remain in complete control of your team and digital transformation. You establish the standards, sprint rhythm, code-review rules, and CI/CD pipelines. One of the partners takes care of administration, recruitment, and operations and you take care of the squad as you would be doing to your in-house engineers. This assists you to grow quickly without growth compromising quality.

To scale well, you should have a flexible, resilient structure that can adjust to change such as new objectives, technology and even increased workloads. By collaborating with a good provider, you have a continuous supply of good and pre-vetted engineers, who can immediately be incorporated into your processes. This is because the resources can always be scaled in IT without delays or loss of momentum because of the lack of talent hence you are never in a crunch of finding candidates.

Key client requirements:

• Introduce mobile application with the aim of serving several local markets
• Develop a team with high skills internally in order to develop the entire SDLC and produce enterprise level healthcare/e-commerce quality
• Act quickly to prevent the delaying process in entering major new markets, such as Brazil and Japan Our solution: We had put up a dedicated mobile development center, which was based in Europe with the following roles:
• Full cycle development including architecture, release, and maintenance
• Integration with the already existing e-commerce back-end
• Localization of the mobile platform in Brazil and Japan The team achieved the following results:
• Successful release of the mobile platform developed by our dedicated engineers
• Total compatibility of the European autonomous center with internal processes
• Regional sales have experienced strong growth following the introduction of localized applications in Brazil and Japan; the mobile application is now more profitable than the internet
• Shortened time to market through expediency in filling the staff in software engineering and team integration
• Continuous, long-term, stable collaboration since 2019, where we keep and upgrade the mobile stack
• Increased internal knowledge, because the company was able to acquire an enterprise level mobile division without upsetting their own in-house team

Challenge 1: Lack of goals and team structure

Problem: You will hire the wrong people, end up with overlapping roles, or lacking key skills without a clear product vision, roles, and responsibilities. Resolution: Before you hurl yourself into the recruitment business, define your business outcomes, your technical strategies and what skills you require. Establish a good organization of responsibilities and expectations.

Challenge 2: Lack of attraction and retention of the best talent

Problem: The IT market is very competitive: good talent acquired fast, and it is easy to lose them as a result of slow hiring or poor onboarding. Delays, knowledge loss and unnecessary additional costs due to the need to hire again and again are caused by high churn. Solution: Co-operate with a nearshore company that has a good reputation and offers a pool of IT professionals, organizes onboarding, and has a retention rate of up to 98%. This will enable you to bring senior-level engineers on board, keep them as long as you want and cut down the chances of losing vital players during the project.

Challenge 3: Inadequate skills and cultural fit assessment

Issue: A poor hire is one of the most expensive errors. The team members who have weak skills or inappropriate culture slack down the team, cause conflicts, require supplementary mentoring and slows down releases. This demoralises and chance of having to go back to time squares and find the right person is high. Solution: Nearshore partners have 4-step vetting process with technical expertise, fit in terms of culture, level of English and interpersonal skills. They are perfectly aligned with your desired candidate profile, and they will only submit to you high-fit candidates.

Challenge 4: Ineffective communication and collaboration

Problem: When the unit does not tend to be synchronized under a organized manner, decision making becomes time consuming, duplication of tasks, and unclear priorities. This forms blockers, retards growth, and lowers quality of products. Solution: Use rituals such as standups, planning, demos, and retrospectives of Agile, as well as Jira, Slack, and GitHub Projects to maintain clarity and order in the work. Periodic review can also be useful in prioritizing, accelerating decision-making, and maintaining the entire team on track. Nearshoring encourages close cooperation between your units: collaboration in the same time zone means that you can communicate in real-time, listening to feedback loops faster, and collaborate across borders far more easily than any other model of outsourcing, and thus managing a distributed team becomes significantly easier and more successful.

Challenge 5: Strain of no growth, autonomy and key work

Problem: When there is no growth prospects, autonomy and meaningful work, the general performance declines and turnover threats are eminent. Fix: Establish good career trajectories, mentor, and conduct frequent knowledge sharing programs. Provide engineers a space to make their decisions as well as to see the fruits of their efforts in easy and obvious forms. This automatically increases the engagement, productivity and long-term loyalty. Although not necessarily technology-oriented, nearshoring would allow your engineers to operate in a highly technical setting with current practices, implementing the same standards, and having peers in the field. This will be empowering the team and decreases chances of losing motivated engineers. This has enabled us to have an average of 3.5 years in terms of tenure of our engineers.

Challenge 6: Managing quality as the problem spreads

Problem: Opening the IT branches at an unsustainable pace leads to loss of quality. This generates bugs, decreases performance and makes the product more difficult to maintain. Solution: Standardization of workflows Before scaling, standardize your workflows. Establish code review policies, establish CI/CD policies, testing policy, and documentation policy. Ensure that your main metrics such as the speed of delivery, the quality of the code, number of bugs and the health score of the team are stable prior to the inclusion of more people. Completely compatible with the current workflows, a partner allows you to scale safely: new engineers enter an already systematized system, and there will be no compromise in quality as the squad expands.

Challenge 7: Dealing with changing technology and business requirements

Problem: When technology is changing and employees not keeping up, old knowledge and procedures will instantly hamper the entire organization. This results in a slow delivery process, erratic development and a product, which just cannot match to the current expectations. Solution: First perform frequent audits to ensure that your stack, architecture and processes remain current. Invest in your personnel education courses, conferences, certifications and internal workshops. New positions can be added on demand and small innovation/R&D units can be established to experiment with new technologies without jeopardizing the core product. Form cross-functional teams to unite product, design, and engineering teams to resolve problems across the entire chain, making them go faster.

120+ companies scaled worldwide: In the past 17 years, we have been assisting companies in building strong and scalable IT teams on a long-term basis. We produce pipelines of talented talent in Europe or LATAM, we scale our processes to meet your demands, and we give you the smoother scaling with full control on your side. 200K+ vetted developers: We access our extensive network of software engineers to help you build powerful technical teams, and at specific domains such as AI, Data, Cloud, Embedded, Blockchain, and so on. High-fit: We recruit to your stack, budget as well as culture and time-zone needs. 50% faster hiring: Our bespoke staffing engine allows you to grow within 2-6 weeks. We also believe that technical competence, English fluency, interpersonal skills and cultural fit are our strongest priorities with a candidate. Retention: up to 98%: Our retention strategy is one that targets retaining your engineers on a long-term basis. It deals with bonuses, benefits, and constant interaction, contributing to decreased churn due to a product launch and more. We are in charge of all the launch logistics: We take care of staffing, onboarding, compliance and even on-the-ground support so your squad can go 100 percent on your roadmap. You complete ownership of the engineers: Under us, you construct your own technology team in a nearshore region: Your software engineers will be part of your processes and will be led by you, and administration, such as IT infrastructure, payroll, human resources, and legal are provided by the provider. With or without an already existing team of techs, a good provider can assist in establishing a solid, committed and scalable unit with complete control on your part.