As a founder, you understand that building a top-tier R&D team is essential to creating innovative products or services that truly solve your customers’ challenges and position your company as an industry leader.
But assembling an R&D team takes more than simply hiring scientists and engineers. Your R&D team is a key pillar of your overall innovation strategy, so their success depends on how solid that strategy is.
It’s just as important to know how to manage this group of experts, making sure they have everything they need to excel.
Building an R&D Team
When you’re building an R&D team, it’s crucial to lay the groundwork before you start recruiting. Who you hire and why should be guided by the objectives you set for your R&D initiative.
- Define Your R&D Strategy
A strong strategy is the backbone of any R&D team, so you need to have one in place before filling R&D roles. McKinsey defines a winning strategy as one that’s clear on three fronts:
- What you want to deliver: Is it a new technology or product? What’s the main purpose of your R&D team? How does R&D support your company’s big-picture goals?
- What you need to deliver it: What capabilities are required? Who do you need to hire? What R&D technologies should you invest in?
- How you’ll deliver it: How will you put your strategy into action? What role will technology play in execution?
Once your R&D strategy is set, McKinsey recommends sharing it clearly across your startup and with any external partners.
- Define Roles and Team Structure
Your R&D strategy will shape the roles and structure of your team. Typically, an R&D team includes:
- Scientists who run experiments and conduct research to support the development of new services, products, or technologies.
- Engineers who design and build services, products, or technologies. They also address product issues and handle redesigns of existing offerings.
- Product managers who oversee the product development cycle and drive the vision for the product or service.
- Market researchers who analyze market trends and gather data on your target audience.
- Technical writers who work with the R&D team to create product documentation and user manuals.
- R&D managers who manage R&D projects, monitor budgets, and supervise the team.
You’ll also want to consider whether to bring in external partners, such as universities or other companies, to strengthen your R&D efforts. For example, in the pharmaceutical sector, large companies often team up with smaller biotechs to speed up R&D and discover new treatments.
As you define roles and build your team structure, be careful not to create silos that hinder collaboration. According to McKinsey, R&D organizations often organize around individual product components instead of user functions—a setup that can cause headaches.
For instance, a car manufacturer developing a lane departure warning system might organize its R&D team by component—steering, braking, and so on. These siloed teams only coordinate late in the process, making it tough and costly to solve problems. When teams work in silos, they can overlook how parts interact as a whole. By contrast, a team organized around user functions collaborates throughout design and development, avoiding these pitfalls.
- Build a Targeted Hiring Process
When you’re building an R&D team from scratch, traditional hiring methods like job boards or networking may not be enough. For highly specialized positions, it’s often worth investing in a recruiting agency that specializes in your field—especially for roles like engineering, where there’s a well-known talent shortage.
Specialized recruiters understand what top candidates are looking for and the unique skills required for each role. They also have access to a broad network, which helps you fill positions faster.
If you want to attract high performers, a specialized recruiter knows how to present the opportunity in a way that appeals to them. Top talent rarely needs to browse job boards—recruiters reach out to them directly. That’s why it’s crucial to stand out with an offer that matches their skills and career ambitions.
Managing an R&D Team
Strong R&D team management not only boosts project success but also helps you retain top talent as your startup grows.
- Encourage Autonomy
Micromanaging wastes valuable time, undermines employee confidence, and signals a lack of trust. Instead, empower your team to take initiative.
Blaise J. Arena, a research chemist, project manager, and author of more than 50 patents and publications, puts it this way: “Make it clear that you expect members to take the initiative on tasks within their domain. Don’t require them to get your approval for everything. They may make mistakes or do things differently than you would. Accept that; don’t criticize or blame—teach.”
Team members are more likely to take initiative when they’re led by enthusiastic, empathetic project managers. Excessive criticism and rigid leadership make teams feel unable to share feedback, raise concerns, or work independently. Worse, it erodes psychological safety—a key factor that research shows has a major impact on performance.
- Stay on Top of Project Updates
Without strong communication, it’s easy to lose focus, miss deadlines, or go over budget. Regular project updates help you catch and address issues early. Set clear guidelines for communication: how often you’ll meet, where and with whom to share updates, and what information should be included.
Always follow up on issues raised in meetings and create a plan to resolve them. Otherwise, meetings lose their value and your R&D goals may slip out of reach.
Depending on your project’s complexity, you may want to invest in a project management tool to keep tasks organized. For remote teams, using a single communication platform like Slack is key to keeping everyone aligned.
- Embrace Failure as Part of the Journey
Innovation doesn’t happen without setbacks. As University of Arizona astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains, “Discovery is mostly a process of finding things that don’t work, and failure is inevitable when you’re pushing the limits of knowledge.” By normalizing failure in your R&D environment, you help your team maintain high morale—even when things don’t go as planned.
Foster this mindset by talking openly about failure and treating it as a learning opportunity, not a sign of incompetence. Focus on understanding what went wrong, not on assigning blame. While analyzing failure can be uncomfortable, leaders should make a deliberate effort to extract lessons instead of rushing to the next project.
This kind of environment is especially important for team members new to R&D. For oncology researcher Eileen Parkes, failure was the biggest surprise after moving from medicine to research. Without enough encouragement, team members may get discouraged and leave, not realizing that failure is a normal part of R&D.
Boost Your R&D Team with Tax Credits
As a startup investing in R&D, you may qualify for the US government’s R&D tax incentive (or SR&ED if you’re in Canada). Filing for tax credits lets you recover part of your R&D investment and reinvest it in future projects. Whether you’re refining your R&D strategy or just getting started, Boast can help you maximize your claim.
With an AI-powered platform like Boast, you can automatically gather all the documentation needed for your tax credit claim—saving time and increasing your refund.
Book a call with an R&D tax expert to make sure you get the most from your R&D tax credits.
