How technology teams are formed – a case study

In the life of a tech start-up, it is inevitable that a non-tech founder needs to grasp an understanding of how technology works. But how does he start? How is a technology team formed? And who does he find?

I had the pleasure of interviewing Zhi Peng Lee (or ZP for short), tech founder and CEO of 40Tasks, whose flagship product is LOCO, a proximity based flash deals app. ZP has over 6 years of experience in programming and managing technology projects in various start-ups of Matchmove and Zumata before starting 40Tasks in 2014. I asked ZP on how technology teams are formed and how projects are executed.

ZP explains that executing a technology project is quite similar to that of constructing a shopping mall. For an easy reference, he will use Loco as a case study to explain the various roles which needs to be fulfilled.

Loco.sg – Building an app is similar to building a shopping mall

1. The Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

In mall construction, the main contractor is an experienced person who is familiar with the aspects of constructing a shopping mall, taking the requirements from the other departments and prepares the architectural blueprints, hiring the relevant expertise and coordinating all the work. His job is very critical as everyone looks to him for the execution of a building project.

In technology, the equivalent role would be the CTO. The CTO whom you need has to be an experienced person who understands what the business requirements of the project are and translate them into an architectural blueprint. He has to hire the relevant programmers / engineers to develop and plan out the project. An action plan will then be formulated and execution carried out by the different engineers.

2.  Database engineers

When constructing a mall, you would need mall traffic planners who decides the logic flow and movement of traffic, where the lifts go and stairwells or where to assign the retail spaces. They decide on how best to efficiently use the space. The mall planners’ responsibility is to maximise the usage of the space so that as many people as possible can move around freely in the mall without congestion. He has to make sure that there are shops set up around the mall and the visitors are able to leave the place as easily as possible when they want to.

Translate this to technology. Think of database engineers as your mall traffic planners, and data as the visitors to the mall. For data, he has to make sure that all application data is stored as efficiently as possible and can be queried effectively. He ensures that the entries to the database are done efficiently without congesting the system and that data can be retrieved from the database without stressing it.

Some of the popular databases are noSQL db such as Mongo, CouchBase and other traditional ones like mySQL and postgres.

3.  Backend development engineers

In mall construction, you would need the structural, mechanical and electrical engineers to lay the foundation, install the various mechanical and electrical fixtures like exhaust, sewer, water, electrical, air-conditioning and so on forth. They also create the various management control systems of the mall.

Take this concept to technology. The backend engineers are developers do the management systems of the mall as well as installing the various functions. Their roles are crucial, for if the foundation is not stable, the entire mall will start to fail in its systems when traffic starts to come in.