As a business owner, you may face many scenarios when hiring a software development team. You may have a brand-new idea for a new multi-functional product, or you may finally come up with a software solution that will bring your company to the next level, or you may plan to embrace complete business modernization. For each case, you will need to understand how to build a software development team to provide you with the maximum value for your business and software.

Below, we’ve compiled a detailed guide that outlines every step you need to take to build an effective software development team: from identifying the talents you need to sharing valuable advice on result-driven management and productive recruitment.     

Software Development Team Structure: Key Roles and Responsibilities 

At RewiSoft, we believe that the software development team is one single mechanism of professionals working towards one common goal: to create a great software solution tailored to the business’s specific needs. The way you want to build the development process and the kind of team you want to create directly affects your project progress and overall business outcomes.

So, before starting the development, we should clearly understand which chunk of work each specialist is responsible for. Usually, we assign different specialists to work on numerous project tasks, including product discovery, requirements gathering, design, development, testing, deployment, and management.

The number of roles and duties of a required software team can vary depending on your unique project scope and requirements. There may be more or fewer roles inside a team, or one person can perform several roles. At RewiSoft, we assign from three to ten members to each software development team from a list of the following software specialists.

To ensure all the necessary software development team roles are covered, you should carefully analyze which team member is responsible for which exact tasks. The following steps will explore each team member’s roles and responsibilities to help you shape a dream team and hire the best talents.

Project manager (PM)

A project manager (PM) is a team member responsible for every aspect of the software development process, from project planning to delivery, while overseeing how the team completes tasks on time and within budget.

The list of main responsibilities of project managers:

• Schedule, host, and document all relevant project meetings 
• Provide the team with the necessary resources to deliver their work
• Monitor the software development team performance
• Update the customer and project stakeholders on project’s status
• Build relationships between the customer and all company’s departments 
• Identify the goals for the team
• Ensure the team meets the software requirements 
• Manage risks, resolve conflicts
• Foster communication and motivate the team

Soft skills must prevail for the project manager position. This is because most of the tasks that a project manager is responsible for relate to communication, negotiation, and management. 

The required soft and hard skills are:

Product manager qualifications and skills can also differ according to the seniority level: junior, middle, and senior.

Business analyst (BA)

A business analyst (BA) is a team member responsible for translating customer business needs into tangible software requirements for the development team. 

The list of main responsibilities of business analysts:

• Conduct market research and analyze target audience demands
• Understand business processes from different perspectives
• Gather and prepare business requirements
• Plan and document business requirements
• Analyze and model business requirements
• Implement project changes if needed 
• Perform acceptance testing

The required soft and hard skills are:

Business analysts key role is to interact with project stakeholders to understand their problems and needs, document them and find an optimal solution. Each seniority level implies a different set of qualifications needed. 

UI/UX designer

A UI/UX designer often encompasses two aspects of their profession: user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. UX designers are responsible for considering the entire journey of a user’s interaction with a product, while UI designers handle the graphic design of the software solution. In other words, the UX designer focuses on functionality and user interactions, while the UI designer is responsible for the look and feel of the software solution. 

Let’s detail the responsibilities of UI designers and UX designers separately.

Main responsibilities of UX designers:

• Perform user research 
• Design information architecture (decide how information is organized and presented to the user)
• Create wireframes and prototypes for user testing 
• Describe user stories and behavior
• Create user personas 
• Conduct usability testing 

Main responsibilities of UI designers:

• Create an intuitive and attractive design from a graphical standpoint 
• Create graphics (logos), select visuals (colors, fonts, overall style) and create navigational (search fields, icons, footers, headers) design elements

The required soft and hard skills are:

At RewiSoft and at most development companies, a single designer develops both UI and UX. However, if your project requires more work than one person can handle, you can hire different designers to fill separate roles.

Software developers (front-end, back-end, full-stack)

Building a software development team to create great software solutions is not possible without software developers. The front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers are responsible for building the software according to software requirements. 

Front-end developers are in charge of creating the part of the application the user interacts with. Back-end developers are in charge of implementing the application logic while ensuring a smooth operation, implementing necessary integrations, and covering security aspects. Full-stack developers can handle all the work at once.

Main responsibilities of front-end developers:

• Work with clients to develop the overall look and design of a website
• Write website code with programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript 
• Produce, maintain, and modify websites and user interfaces
• Incorporate applications, graphics, audio, and video clips into client websites
• Create tools that enhance the user’s website experience
• Ensure websites are accessible across many platforms, including laptops and smartphones
• Maintain software workflow management
• Look at SEO best practices
• Test the site for usability and fixing any bugs

Main responsibilities of back-end developers:

• Troubleshoot and debug applications
• Conduct UI tests and optimize performance
• Participate in the application lifecycle
• Develop sustainable web applications with clean codes
• Write code with programming languages like Java, Ruby, PHP, and Python
• Provide training and support to other team members

The required soft and hard skills are:

Software architect

A software architect is a team member responsible for the entire architecture of the system or product in development. This person envisions the overall application architecture, decides which services and databases should communicate, and how integrations should work while ensuring the solution is secure and stable. The architect participates in defining the technology stack and project estimation.

Main responsibilities of software architects:

• Design a high-level software architecture
• Select appropriate tools and platforms to implement the product vision
• Set up code quality standards
• Perform code reviews
• Control the process of software development 

The required soft and hard skills are:

QA engineers

QA engineer or tester is responsible for testing the product for usability, performance, functionality, and security, finding bugs and inconsistencies while ensuring the product is ready for release. Depending on the testing approach, the QA engineers perform all testing types in one person or separately.

Main responsibilities of QA engineers:

• Create test scenarios 
• Run manual and automation tests
• Make sure an application performs according to requirements
• Spots functional and non-functional defects
• Create test reports

The required soft and hard skills are:

Team Lead

A tech lead is a person responsible for the technical implementation of the project: quality, performance, efficiency, and durability. These specialists work as a mediator between business management and software development. 

Main responsibilities of a tech lead:

• Take responsibility for the technical project side
• Implement the code standards and procedures that work best
• Detail the project’s structure while ensuring to meet the core requirements
• Align technological, and business strategies

The required soft and hard skills are:

Important to note, the qualifications and skills required for each seniority level may vary depending on your financial capabilities and the level of expertise required.

How to Build a Software Development Team in 10 Steps?

As a business owner, there are many things you need to consider before building a software development team: from identifying project resources to analyzing the roles and responsibilities you want to delegate inside your team. So, let’s detail each step to help you come up with a required team structure to complete all your project’s tasks successfully. 

Step 1. Identify your project size and complexity

To understand how to build a software development team – you first have to work out your project scope. Four specialists will be enough if you need to redesign a platform or create a product prototype.

The opposite situation may happen if you decide to build an application from scratch with custom features and multiple third-party integrations – the number of specialists will increase. You may also need to assemble several separate teams with different roles to work together for large-scale projects.

Furthermore, you may often need to attract narrow-profile specialists for your project—for example, developers specializing in game development, robotics, desktop development, etc. So, we recommend you outline these aspects right from the start to move forward smoothly.

Step 2. Structure your engineering team for a project  

If you have a software project at hand and need to bring your software idea to life with high quality – understanding how to build a software development team should also start with choosing a proper approach to creating a team. Most commonly, most software development teams fall into one of three categories:

• Technology team (Specialists) 
• Product team (Generalists)
• Matrix team

The staff in these categories differ depending on the work focus, competencies, and knowledge. Understanding the main distinctions between them is essential to understand what issues may arise when working and managing them. 

Technology team (Specialists). Specialists in this group have a high proficiency in a specific business domain. They are focused on one specialty or technology area. For example:

• Back-end development
• Front-end development
• QA and testing
• Android development
• IOS development 
• Etc. 

Specialists leverage their knowledge and expertise to handle specific matters more efficiently and productively. However, since they are narrow specialists, they may lack solid communication skills and require a project manager to direct communication.    

The technology team works well for complex projects that require deep technical expertise and long-term projects with changing requirements and shifting priorities.  

Product team (Generalists). A product team focuses on the product itself. Such a team is highly committed to bringing product success rather than achieving technical excellence. Such development teams are good at full-stack development. They are managed by a Team Lead responsible for coordinating the development princess and bringing tangible product results. However, they may need more technical knowledge to carry out a project with specific technical requirements.

The product team works well for end-to-end software development and projects with tight schedules.

Matrix team. Such a team allows you to enjoy the benefits of product and technology teams at once. The product team focuses on a holistic picture of your product, while technology experts handle complex projects’ tech implementation.

This team structure is suitable for projects that require the exchange of skills between departments and projects with a limited budget.               

Step 3. Allocate budget and set project timelines

There is no one-size-fits-all approach suitable for each unique case. So, the next vital aspect to consider when building a software development team is the availability of project resources and the goals you want to achieve within a specific timeline. The available budget will affect not only the number of team members but also the seniority of specialists you’ll be able to hire.  

When our customers turn to us, we help to estimate the entire work and carefully consider the software requirements to avoid project missteps while optimizing resources. To reduce project expenses, we suggest our customers focus on high-priority features and stick to Agile development methodology to ensure cost flexibility without sacrificing quality.  

Step 4. Explore the software development approaches 

The roles of the effective software development team are versatile. Depending on the project management methodology you choose – Agile or Waterfall – the key roles and team composition will also differ. 

Let’s highlight the key differences between Agile and Waterfall teams in the table below.

As you may notice, Agile development teams’ roles and responsibilities differ from a traditional Waterfall model. The RewiSoft team adheres to agile or mixed development methodologies to create a productive work environment with transparent workflows. When sticking to the agile approach, each team member plays a crucial role in the project. Thus, each specialist is highly committed to reaching outstanding results and influencing overall progress.   

Step 5. Conduct analysis and define the size of a team

Building a software development team with a clear analysis of the specific roles of the team members is a must. Once we have analyzed the project’s type, scope, available resources, deadlines, and complexity, we can clarify the size of a team and set expectations for each team role.

To visualize this, look at the examples below:

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Step 6. Scan online platforms and look for referrals 

Looking for answers on how to attract software developers to assemble a professional team, you can start by sorting out your contact book. That means you may already know people from your industry who can recommend particular software developers or outsourcing agencies.

Otherwise, you can scan specialized professional platforms to find the perfect match for your needs. As examples of such websites, we recommend visiting:

1. Clutch
2. GoodFirms
3. LinkedIn
4. Upwork
5. Glassdoor 

Step 7. Check out CVs and portfolios

After we’ve prepared a clear job description with specific requirements, we start searching for talents. During talent acquisition, we pay attention to candidates’ work experience, claimed expertise, previous work achievements, and employers’ recommendations. The next critical aspects to check before selecting candidates are previous projects and similar case studies to check if this experience fits our current needs.   

Step 8. Interview candidates

We start the interview process when we’ve created a pool of potential hires. During the interview, we make sure to check the following: 

1. Previous experience – to understand the candidate’s expertise and ability to demonstrate their work and project deliverables
2. Tech stack they’re familiar with – to check if the candidate has practiced using the technologies and tools we expect from them (e.g., Figma, Jira, ClickUp, etc.)
3. Attitude to work – find out their main motivations
4. Collaboration skills – to understand the ability to communicate with team members, project stakeholders, and other teams and resolve possible misunderstandings 
5. Soft and hard skills – to verify if they match the expected ones

The interview helps us gain a deeper insight into the candidate’s approach to work and experience and outline the future workflow. Following the hiring procedure right, we can assemble not only a team of the best talents but provide an attractive work environment and get a reduced employee turnover instead – as the primary indicator of our professionalism. 

Refresh your knowledge on how to hire an app developer risk-free with our latest guide!

Step 9. Prepare a contract

Before sending a job offer – we make sure to include the following legal aspects in cooperation agreements:

• Key goals, responsibilities, and tasks that we expect the candidate to perform. This way, we can ensure the work will be completed as expected. Otherwise, we will have an opportunity to use legal rights to prove the contractor’s failure to comply with the stated obligations to perform the work.   
• Remuneration and terms of payment. We include the amount of remuneration, which must be clearly stated in the contract, and also stipulate the methods and terms of payment. This way, we avoid further misunderstandings.   
• Trial period. Typically, we set up 3 months probation period for a new employee. During this period, we expect the new employees to apply all their skills and knowledge to perform specific tasks.  
• Terms of contract termination. We clearly indicate under what circumstances both parties can terminate the contract and what the obligations are in such cases. 

After all the recruitment jobs are done, we can finally sort the list of candidates and choose a candidate that suits both our budget and project needs.      

Step 10. Consider software development outsourcing or staff augmentation

Suppose you’re not technically savvy in understanding how to build a software development team or want to delegate this task to a reputed software development agency. In that case, you’re on the right path.

By hiring a dedicated software development team, you can fully delegate your software idea implementation to a group of professionals with broad experience to create great products in your industry. This solution works best for long-term and complicated projects. Software specialists can quickly scale your engineering department to take over a new project, software update, or app redesign. Under this model, the administration is on your side, while the vendor can assist with organizational issues.

If staff augmentation suits your project needs most, you can easily supplement your ongoing project with the necessary specialists without wasting time and effort on the recruitment and management process. You can quickly fill the talent gaps with the needed specialist (UI/UX designer, cross-platform developer, IOS, Android coder, etc.) to perform a specific role and responsibilities. 

Where to find a software development team?

There are many options where you can find all tech staff to build a software development team. Let’s review each of them as well as highlight the benefits and drawbacks that may affect your final choice.   

Gather an in-house software development team

This option is ideal for you if you have a solid technical and recruiting experience to interview, onboard and train your team, and have enough time. Choosing this option will require your own recruiting and management efforts. Take into account that financial obligations for office rent, organizing staff workspace, taxes, and other employment contract perks fall on your shoulders. Plus, the cost of hiring software specialists may exceed the budget you’ve allocated. Especially if you hire developers in the US and Canada, where the average hourly rates reach $120-$250.     

Collaborate with freelancers

Depending on the type of work, you can hire a freelance software engineer to perform a specific chunk of tasks, whether updating UI/UX design, integrating third-party tools into the platform, etc. 

However, collaborating with freelancers has many pitfalls. When your project is on the go, you may need to build a complex product and hire other specialists. Such a scenario will require time and complete control on your part, so these freelancers can communicate with each other and perform the tasks according to the project schedule. Moreover, this option does not guarantee the level of commitment of freelancers to your project.    

Hire an outsourcing vendor

An outsourcing vendor provides a full-packed software development team based on your needs and requirements. Plus, you can collaborate with software development outsourcing vendors from all over the world on the most favorable terms for you. Such an option is highly demanded since your hiring, management, and financial obligations are minimized. Reputable outsourcing providers have proven development workflows, industry and technology expertise, and effective software development teams to deliver digital solutions and products on time, with quality, and on budget.

Find out more about why Ukraine is a hotspot for software development outsourcing. Read – Hiring Software Developers in Ukraine: Top 10 Reasons to Consider    

5 Tips from RewiSoft for Building the Right Software Development Team

Discovering how to build a software development team is the first step toward a successful project start. Below, we’d like to share the best practices that help us build the right software development teams and achieve all project goals.

Monitor the hiring flows

By controlling the hiring flows, you can attract the right specialists into your software development team to apply for the required roles. Therefore, we recommend developing the right recruiting strategy to gain access to a larger talent pool and filter out passive candidates who are not interested in taking your job. To achieve these goals, follow the following practices:

• Create a job description with a series of performance objectives 
• Outline four or five objectives and tasks that can be measured within the candidate’s domain of expertise
• Ask your candidate to provide a two-paragraph description of their past work experience and accomplishments 

Such practices increase your chances of finding a valuable contributor for your software development team.         

Hire proactive and responsible team players

To build the right software development team – you should prioritize proactive and responsible team players. The success of your software development project largely depends on how the team communicates and works together. If you’d like to build a successful and efficient software development team – consider team players who can work independently and in a team excellently and appreciate the whole team’s contributions. And consider proactive and responsible specialists willing to take the initiative and responsibility for handling tasks and managing plans and workload.     

Hold teams accountable

It’s crucial to build a software development team accountable for their work. Following this practice will help you ensure that everyone contributes to the ultimate success and fulfills their responsibilities accordingly. To make your software development team accountable, consider the following recommendations:

• Voice your expectations clearly for the end results and expectations for the team. 
• Share your company’s mission, core values, and project goals with your team. For example, at RewiSoft, we emphasize transparency, customer centricity, flexibility, and quality in collaboration with our customers.
• Provide regular and constructive feedback. This will help all team members manage work bottlenecks, achieve personal and professional development goals and boost productivity.
• Reward a whole team, not a single performer. This will help your software development team to see their shared success, so they will be motivated to replicate that success in future projects.        

Organize working procedures and provide tools

If you understand how to build a software development team, providing a favorable work environment that enhances the team’s efficiency and reduces frustration is vital. So, when creating and managing your development team, it’s essential to organize all working procedures and make the workplace comfortable. So, provide all collaboration tools and resources so your team can efficiently perform tasks, meet deadlines, communicate and work towards the common project goals.

We recommend providing quality technology to help your team deliver consistent project success. 

Chat: Slack, Skype, Google Hangouts

Task management: ClickUp 

Project management: Jira, Trello 

Web and video conferencing: Google Meet, Zoom, Skype

File management: Google Drive, OneDrive

Scheduling: Calendly, HubSpot        

Boost productivity and avoid burnout   

The RewiSoft team strives to stand out among the many software development companies, so we create a system of benefits and incentives to motivate the team, boost productivity and avoid burnout. We prioritize not only the team’s technical capabilities but take care of their mental health. Thus, we balance the workload and don’t force the developers to produce results beyond their capacity. We give our staff some independence to plan the work and allow them to make steps toward achieving the project’s common goal. 

At RewiSoft, we provide employment benefits and social packages to support employees’ health, avoid professional burnout and motivate people to move up the career ladder. To the list of such benefits, we include:

• Flexible working hours
• Paid vacations and sick leaves
• Competitive salary
• Team-building activities
• Relocation bonuses
• Mentoring
• Corporate English classes
• Discounts for attending sports activities and professional courses
• Any other assistance on request   

How to Make your Software Development Team Efficient?

Here, we’d like to share RewiSoft’s experience on how to build a software development team to ensure a collaborative and productive work environment, boost team efficiency and avoid employee turnover.  

Facilitate cross-team communication

When a new hire or the team joins our company, we help everyone to get acquainted with our in-house approaches, workflows, and processes. We set up weekly meetings with all company departments to update everyone on the projects’ statuses and make general announcements. This way, we let everyone ask urgent questions and provide quick support while ensuring everyone works aligned.    

Set task priorities and KPIs

The RewiSoft team adheres to Agile software development, which helps us to break the project scope into smaller tasks by priority. This flexible approach allows us to increase productivity, balance the daily workload, and deliver project results during every short iteration.

Setting KPIs drives results and adds to the project’s progress. In turn, employees can clearly understand the goals they need to achieve or understand what needs to be improved further.      

Schedule regular meetings to track team progress

Regular team meetings are the way we ensure every team member is on the same page regarding the task execution and project vision. We can also organize Q&A sessions so everyone can take the initiative and get everything they need to complete tasks. In addition, we hold retrospective meetings to bring together all participants in the process, discuss possible bottlenecks, plan process improvements, or highlight project achievements. This method provides greater transparency in both communication and overall workflow.      

Encourage team-building activities

Team-building activities are valuable to let our development team bond together and build a strong team spirit. To create a collaborative work environment and reduce burnout, we take care of our employee’s work-life balance. During such activities, our teams can get to know each other closely and rest together. Thus, we can have lunch or dinner together, participate in group training, attend different sports events, watch movies, volunteer, etc.   

Maintain a healthy work environment

By fostering a collaborative and healthy working environment, we avoid stressful situations and destructive conflicts in the team. Thus, we create fair and equal rules for every team member regardless of their position in the company. To avoid communication gaps, we set up a video call to resolve misunderstandings and reach a compromise.

What Challenges Can You Face When Building a Software Development Team?

Building a software development team may often come with numerous mistakes and obstacles on your way. With a solid professional background in building software development teams, we would like to highlight the common challenges you may encounter in the process and offer a workable solution for each scenario.   

Unprepared job interview

Problem: One of the essential parts of building a software development team is properly conducting a job interview. That means you should analyze whether the candidate is competent to cover the role and responsibilities in your team. If you don’t have tech specialists to check the hard skills and ask the right interview questions to validate their prior tech background – it can lead to a waste of time and resources for hiring the wrong staff.

Solution: As a reputable outsourcing provider, we help businesses hire a variety of professionals and conduct live coding interviews to properly test hard skills under the guidance of top experts in the relevant IT field.

Timezone and language barriers

Problem: Looking for how to build a software development team may often come to possible concerns regarding hiring developers offshore. You may meet timezone and language barriers and need to learn how to cope. 

Solution: We recommend hiring developers or outsourcing vendors who are flexible in terms of schedules and communication. For instance, at Rewisoft, we have well-polished development workflows to adapt to the customer’s timetable. We always strive to meet strict deadlines, have a good command of English, and constantly improve our English proficiency by enabling regular English classes.   

Inappropriate corporate culture

Problem: There are often situations where understanding how to build a software development team does not mean the project’s ultimate success. This is possible if you haven’t created an appropriate corporate culture where your team is motivated, stress-free, and committed to delivering great results.

Solution: Since most of the software development team today works remotely, we recommend scheduling regular meetings, both within the team and one-to-one. Monitoring the employee’s performance regularly and holding Q&A sessions will help you minimize the risks and tackle problems early on. 

Loss of focus

Problem: Loss of focus during a complicated and expensive development lifecycle may result in delivering the wrong solution and losing working time. This hurdle often arises if you are building a software development team from scratch and have no previous project-based development experience.

Solution: We recommend holding regular project roadmap reviews to stay on the same page regarding the product vision and project focus. Retrospective meetings come in handy in such cases as well. Such meetings will allow your team to look at their progress, map out further development steps, and eliminate problems that prevent things from going as planned.      

How much does it cost to cooperate with a software development team?

As a business owner or G-suite representative, you might want to know how to attract software developers to get the jobs done on time and within budget. Although we helped you understand how to build a software development team, there are other questions we can answer before you decide to create a team: how much does it cost to cooperate with a software development team, and how long does it take for a software development team to develop software?

At RewiSoft, we divide the development process into four major phases where our clients most often need professional help. In the picture below, you can look at rough costs based on the project stage and team location.

The cost for your software project can also be dependent on such factors as:

1. Business model
2. Features package
3. Expected time to market
4. Development approach
5. Team location
6. Team size
7. Team expertise
8. Hiring model

How long does it take for a software development team to develop software?

For more information on project timelines, below you can also see RewiSoft’s timeline calculations based on project size and stage.

While you can understand how long it takes to develop software, there are several reasons why timelines vary.

The first reason is the availability of an extensive portfolio with similar projects. That means that we have already worked out the best practices and approaches, so we know how to speed up the overall development process in our teams.

Another reason is the wide range of industries in which we have hands-on experience and expertise. That means that we already know the critical industry specifics, know the key regulations, and have analyzed relevant markets to offer the most optimal solution for our customers quickly. 

In any case, contact us to get a project estimate that matches your budget and expected release time. 

Building a Software Development Team with RewiSoft: How Can We Help?

Hope the above guide has helped you clarify how to build a software development team based on our extensive background. Following the steps and tips above helps us build a highly efficient team and maximize productivity.

If you’d like to hand this responsibility over to professionals, we’re here to take on your next software project and help you find the right talents.

RewiSoft is an Eastern European software development outsourcing company based in Ukraine with offices in the UAE and the US. We provide wide-ranging software development and hiring services to help startups, mid-sized companies, and enterprise-grade organizations embrace digital transformation and cutting-edge technology and take their businesses to the next level.

We know how to build a software development team to address critical business issues in a risk-free, budget-friendly, and time-optimized way. We work across many business domains and deliver custom solutions to customers from Healthcare, Real Estate, EdTech, and Fintech industries. With us, you will be able to:

• Cooperate under the most favorable cooperation models (product development outsourcing, IT staff augmentation) and pricing (dedicated team, fixed price, time and materials) models 
• Build software development teams quickly integrating into well-establish workflows 
• Get mixed or Agile product development methodologies
• Acquire top tech talents with industry-specific backgrounds, different technology expertise, and proven skill sets
• Establish effective work to meet your expectations and business goals best