Building and maintaining a team for developing complex ecosystems

It is essential to understand how complex this area truly is and what the development of an ecosystem entails. This understanding shapes the expectations, planning, and resources needed to build and sustain such a team.

The complexity of team building and key expectations

Developing complex ecosystems — integrating electronics, firmware, and software into a single functioning whole — places significantly higher demands on team composition and management than developing any of these components individually. It’s not just about having skilled engineers; the entire team must be able to collaborate efficiently across disciplines, coordinate processes, and maintain consistency throughout years of product evolution.

Understanding what ecosystem development requires is the foundation for setting realistic expectations, budgets, and long-term plans for building and sustaining the team.

Ideal team size and composition

While basic electronics development typically requires at least a four-person team (two electronics engineers and two firmware developers), developing a full ecosystem requires additional members — especially software developers and integration specialists.

A typical baseline team might look like this:

• 2–3 hardware developers – schematic design, PCB layout, production support

• 2–3 firmware developers – architecture design, implementation, testing, debugging

• 2–3 software/application developers – development of desktop, web, or mobile applications and their communication with firmware

• 1 system architect / integration specialist – ensures the functional integration of all parts

• 1 project manager – project planning, cross-team coordination, timeline and deliverable oversight
   

This means that an effective minimum team for ecosystem development typically ranges between 8 and 11 people. Smaller teams struggle to cover all necessary competencies and carry substantial risks if any key member is missing.

Documentation, communication, and code transferability

Another reason for having more members is that if only one person worked on the task, there would not be sufficient control over the architecture and the design itself.

Communication and ongoing control of all parts are important in development. Collaboration between multiple people ensures that the code is transferable and the documentation is understandable even to people who are not directly involved in the process.

Why “more people” is a necessity, not a luxury

The more layers a system has, the more critical coordination becomes. If a firmware developer modifies a communication protocol, the software team must know immediately. Without shared documentation and continuous communication, incompatibilities arise — dramatically increasing time and cost later in the project.

The long-term sustainability of the product depends on code handover, documentation, and established standards. A larger team provides not only redundancy and knowledge sharing but also ensures architectural quality, code consistency, and smoother onboarding of new members.

The risks of single-developer or very small-team development

In small teams covering multiple areas at once, overload, missing documentation, and unmaintainable solutions are common. If one developer designs the hardware, writes the firmware, and builds the application, the system often hits a point where it can no longer be expanded, scaled, or efficiently modified.

While such an approach may appear quick and inexpensive initially, it is extremely risky long-term. Adding a new developer often becomes impossible because the system is undocumented and all knowledge resides with a single person.

For the company, this means dependency on one key employee and a complete lack of flexibility. A well-structured team can deliver the same solution far more sustainably, clearly, and in a fraction of the time.

The team as an environment for growth, knowledge sharing, and innovation

A multidisciplinary team naturally supports the growth of its members — firmware engineers gain insight into software architecture, software developers understand the constraints of embedded systems, and hardware engineers learn about communication protocols or power requirements.

Such an environment increases efficiency, improves design quality, and boosts long-term motivation. It also helps identify weaknesses early, before they appear in testing or production.

Talented people want to grow and learn — which is why the team must work on diverse projects that allow continuous development and keep motivation high.

Recruiting and retaining the team

Hiring developers for complex ecosystem development is even more difficult than recruiting for traditional electronics engineering. You are looking for people who not only excel in their domain but can also communicate across disciplines and understand system-level connections. Such specialists are extremely rare.

A common ratio is 1 suitable candidate out of 15 — someone who meets both the technical and personal requirements and is willing to commit long-term. And even among those, only about half typically remain in the company.

Building a stable team therefore takes years, not months. The annual cost of a single developer — including equipment, workspace, and recruitment — typically reaches around 60 000 EUR in the Czech Republic.

Summary: Building a development team is a time- and resource-intensive effort

Developing complex ecosystems requires not only top-tier technical expertise but also strong coordination, structured communication, and disciplined processes. Building such a team demands years of investment, experienced leadership, and significant financial resources.

For companies that want to bring a product to market quickly, establishing and maintaining their own development team represents a major risk and a heavy operational burden.