Scaling Engineering Teams for Startups: What to be Prepared for?

Scaling an engineering team is one of the most exciting stages of a startup’s lifecycle. Investors are putting a lot of faith into your business model, and now you need a skilled technical team on your side to live up to their expectations. The engineers you add to your core squad at this step will set the bar for the future development of your venture.

As a company that has been scaling engineering teams for startups for years, we know for sure that building the right kind of team is challenging. Small-sized companies have to jump through many hoops, vying for tech talent with bigger, well-known companies. At nCube, our mission is to help startups by adding skilled engineers based in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Within a strategic team scaling approach, we help tech leaders build remote units that will be a seamless extension of their core teams when it comes to communication and processes.

In this post, we will give some advice on how to prepare for scaling your engineering team smoothly.

How to scale up your team: Tips

Let’s explore some things you may want to be prepared for before you embark on your team scaling journey.

Be prepared to pitch your company

To attract the cream of the crop engineers, you should show candidates that working with your startup would be beneficial for their career. IT candidates nowadays are spoilt for choice and tend to join teams where leaders exuberate passion for their business and have a long-term vision when it comes to its implementation. Most candidates these days are passive job seekers, which makes it even harder to get their attention. So, in a labor market like this, you need to go the extra mile to define why your company stands out from the rest and be prepared to “sell” it to a candidate.

Define your mission and values

Establishing your company’s mission and values before you begin the process of scaling your engineering team serves two purposes. For one, it helps you attract those candidates who are advocates of the same values as you and your core team. Secondly, having a clear mission helps all team members (including your new hires) see the big picture, which further fosters their motivation.

Emphasize professional growth

If you want to work with best-in-class engineers, you should ensure that working at your organization resonates with their personal career goals. With that in mind, be prepared to provide a clear plan for your new hires reflecting on how they will develop within your organization career-wise.

Make sure your core team is ready

If you’ve decided to scale your team, make sure your core team members are prepared for it. Only your core team can have the needed understanding of whether they need extra hands and where it’s best to apply them. The process of scaling your engineering teams requires a slew of skills (and additional hours as well) to onboard, train, and support your new hires. It may also call for recalibrating your internal processes. It’s best to seek advice from your squad on how team scaling would affect their existing workflows and communications. Chances are, you may discover that scaling engineering teams isn’t the right way to go and you’d be better off settling for other means, for example, process automation.

Set up a proper hiring process

How to scale up wisely? Scaling your engineering team requires a well-rounded process that includes several rounds of interviews with multiple candidates, including tech skills challenges and soft skills tests. A thorough selection process is the best way to avoid hit-and-miss hires.

Setting up a solid hiring process often requires a full-fledged HR team. If your startup isn’t ready to expand on such a scale so far, you may consider delegating the process of scaling your company to a partner like nCube. With us, you won’t have to sift through resumes in search of suitable candidates. With a custom team scaling process that includes several rounds of internal interviews, we will help you add the right engineers to your team and later integrate them into your company processes. By doing so we spare you time that you can invest in developing your product and brand.

Outline success metrics

When scaling your engineering team, it’s essential to define KPIs to measure your team’s scaling success. KPIs are important at the team formation stage and in the software development process in equal measures. At the stage of candidate selection, they help you show your potential new hires that you have a clear vision of the company’s growth. When adding new team members, KPIs will also foster transparency and help keep the team’s motivation high.

Be prepared for new management challenges

The ability to properly manage your growing squad is key to your team scaling success. Scaling your engineering teams requires a different approach than the one you may have had when your company consisted of a handful of people. It’s crucial to maintain a positive working environment and foster synergy among newcomers and your core unit. If you master this art, you will be able to keep a soaring retention rate and attract the best talent from the market.

Be proactive throughout the entire team scaling process

As a visionary, you should take an active part in scaling your engineering teams. Your role in the process of team scaling is of a strategic kind – you will make decisions to hire people who will set the bar for the future of your organization and contribute to your company’s success. That being said, our approach allows tech leaders to be involved in the crucial aspects of startup scaling – from team formation to working directly with your newly created technical team.

Team scaling with nCube

You can rely on us when it comes to building a sustainable and skilled addition to your team. Our model of scaling engineering teams assumes the following benefits:

Quick team scaling: With access to a vast pool of tech talent, we can launch your new technical team in as little as 2-4 weeks.

A full dedication approach: For a startup, it’s essential to have team members who will be fully integrated into your workflows. We have years of experience in scaling engineering teams with experts that become indispensable cogs in our client’s companies.

Access to seasoned engineers: We source candidates from our network of 100,000+ skilled engineers, most of which already have experience working in a startup environment. We also have access to such powerhouses of tech talent as Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Direct access to your team: The team you build with us will be your own team. nCube’s model lets you keep full control over team roles and be your engineers’ direct manager.

A personal touch: We strive to meet every detail when it comes to the requirements for scaling your engineering teams, resulting in providing you only with relevant candidates.

Focus on your product: When scaling your engineering team with nCube, you can cross out such laborious processes as HR, recruitment, team administration and retention, payroll, etc, and be laser-focused on your business. nCube covers all the bases when it comes to things related to building a technical team and its support.

A high-retention strategy: Your engineers will stay around for as long as you need them. As a reputable employee, we emphasize employees’ comfort and provide the best work benefits a candidate can find in a competitive job market.

If you aim for a strategic team scaling, contact us, and let’s see if our model can benefit your startup.

MARYNA DEMCHENKO