Building Resilient Tech Teams

If you work in tech, or hire tech professionals, you’ll know resilience isn’t an optional attribute that would simply be nice to have in your team. Resilience is the quality that separates teams who perform well under pressure from those who struggle when things get tough. 

Tech is an ever-changing game where priorities shift, products pivot, and markets turn quickly. 

The teams that succeed have people with the ability to bounce back when plans go sideways and can handle the day-to-day demands.  

 But here’s the part hiring managers can sometimes miss, cultivating resilience in your team starts at the recruitment stage. It starts with hiring people who can weather change and stay strong for the long haul. 

Here’s how to spot and hire for resilience. 

Hire for Resilience, Not Just a Shiny CV 

We’re not saying every role needs to be filled by someone who’s trekked across the Andes with a laptop in their backpack. But resilience is an important quality to look for in candidates, and it doesn’t always show up in the same way for every candidate.  

To hire for resilience, don’t get stuck on searching for the perfect set of skills on a resume. A flawless resume might look great, but it doesn’t always tell you how someone handles the unexpected. 

Broadening your search to include the types of experiences that indicate resilience is key. Look for people who’ve adapted to major changes in business priorities, survived product pivots, or navigated messy legacy code without rage-quitting. Ask about challenges they’ve faced and how they handled them.  

In the interview process, go deeper than the skills checklist. Ask how they’ve handled pressure, setbacks, or ambiguity. Listen for examples of problem-solving, curiosity, and persistence, not just technical brilliance. 

Think Like a Matchmaker (Yes, Really) 

Resilient teams are made of people who work well together. Hiring for individual resilience is only half the picture. The other half is building a team that gels together (but aren’t clones of each other, either). 

If your team is relaxed and collaborative, don’t drop in someone who thrives on cutthroat competition. You could hire a 10x engineer (if they exist), but if they can’t sync with your existing team, the risks grow: tension starts brewing, collaboration takes a hit and morale starts tanking.  

Effective tech recruitment means evaluating both technical ability and cultural fit. Weighing up both factors helps build teams that support each other, plays to each other’s strengths, and stay self-motivated.  

Look for Balanced Skill Sets 

Building resilient teams is a sensible way to avoid one person carrying all the soft skills-related duties for their colleagues. When one person becomes the team’s unofficial PM, comms officer, and emotional support human, that’s a potential recipe for an early resignation. 

Hiring for a combination of soft and technical skills is important for this reason. People who can code and communicate - those who know their way around Git and a difficult Slack thread. These folks help spread the workload, reduce miscommunication and build healthier team dynamics. They’re the ones who know when to help a teammate, when to ask for help themselves, and when to just take a break.  

Sometimes, the fancy term for this is ‘emotional intelligence’, but another way to describe it is ‘treating others the way you would like to be treated’. We all appreciate it when our colleagues do things like keep us in the loop, do their share of the work (and no less), and try to be pleasant on most days. So, why not hire someone who does those things? 

We appreciate, as tech recruiters, that finding people with an ideal balance of technical skills and soft skills isn’t an easy task (and we can help with that). But it’s worth keeping in mind, especially if your team has seen solid people leave because they ended up carrying the emotional load on top of their actual job.  

Be Honest About What the Job Actually Is 

We’ve all seen those job ads promising innovation, autonomy, and a “fast-paced environment” (translation: you’ll be busy). But there is a fine line between selling a role and setting up future hires for failure.  

If you oversell a role, people will get frustrated faster when reality hits, so it’s sensible to set realistic expectations from the jump. Be honest about the typical workload, the pressure points, and the current challenges. Hiring managers may shy away from being upfront about these things, out of fear of scaring good candidates off. But candidates appreciate honesty more than you might think.  

Honesty about the scope of the work removes ambiguity and helps build trust. And it means your new hire is more likely to stick around past the onboarding phase, because they know exactly what they signed up for. 

In summary… 

Resilience isn’t something you can bolt onto a team later. It’s built from the start, with every hiring decision you make. By thinking beyond the resume, prioritising adaptability, and hiring people who bring both skills and the right mindset, you’ll create teams that stay strong under pressure and keep performing over time. 

Next time you’re hiring, consider whether the candidate will help balance the team dynamic, not just the workload. It’s one of those small shifts in thinking that can make a big difference in how resilient your team feels six months down the line. 

And yes – those team lunches and yoga sessions still have their place! Supporting your team’s wellbeing matters. But so does good workforce planning, knowing when to call in contractors, and handling change with care and transparency. 

Need help with hiring a resilient crew of developers, product pros, or data specialists who understand your workplace culture? Digital Garage delivers tech recruitment solutions that help New Zealand businesses build strong teams who like coming in to work every day. Don’t hesitate to get in touch - we’d love to help.