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I learned the most important lesson of my career in a press box, not a boardroom.
In 1997, I became the BBC’s first female football commentator. I spent seven years watching teams from the inside – not just the tactics, but the dynamics.
And the pattern was always the same: the teams that won weren’t necessarily the ones with the most talented individuals. They were the ones with the best chemistry.
Twenty-seven years later, I apply that same insight to something completely different – building hardware and robotics teams for startups. And the principle holds: credentials get you interviews, but chemistry gets you results.
Why Hardware Teams Are Different
If you’ve only ever hired software engineers, building a hardware team will humble you fast.
Software is forgiving. You can deploy a fix in hours, roll back a bad commit in minutes, and iterate on features without touching anything physical.
Hardware is the opposite.
When a robotic arm doesn’t move the way the simulation predicted, you can’t just push a hotfix. You need the mechanical engineer talking to the firmware developer talking to the controls engineer – and they all need to understand each other’s constraints.
This cross-disciplinary dependency is what makes chemistry so critical in hardware teams. In a software company, a brilliant but difficult developer can sometimes succeed in isolation. In a hardware company, that person will create bottlenecks that cost you months.
I’ve seen this play out repeatedly over 10 years embedded with a robotics company. The hires that failed weren’t the ones who lacked technical skills. They were the ones who couldn’t collaborate across disciplines. The mechanical engineer who dismissed software constraints. The software engineer who couldn’t explain their work to the rest of the team.
Every single time, the technical skills were there.
The chemistry wasn’t.
What Chemistry Actually Means in a Hardware Team
Chemistry isn’t some vague, touchy-feely concept. In hardware teams, it shows up in very specific, measurable ways.
It’s communication under pressure.
When the prototype fails during testing and the investor demo is next week, how does your team respond?
Do they blame each other, or do they circle up and solve the problem together? I’ve watched teams navigate these moments hundreds of times, and the difference is always about how they talk to each other – not how smart they are.
It’s intellectual humility across disciplines. Great hardware engineers know what they don’t know.
A robotics team needs people who can say ‘I’m not sure how this affects the electrical design – can we review it together?’ rather than ‘that’s not my problem.’
This humility isn’t a personality trait you can interview for with a standard technical question. It requires deliberate assessment.
It’s aligned working styles.
Some engineers thrive with detailed specifications and structured sprints. Others need open-ended exploration time to solve hard problems. Neither approach is wrong, but putting them on the same team without understanding this mismatch creates friction that no amount of talent can overcome.
It’s shared values about what ‘good enough’ means.
In hardware, the difference between an engineer who wants to perfect every component and one who’s comfortable shipping a working prototype can derail an entire product timeline. They both need to agree on where the quality bar sits – and that agreement comes from cultural alignment, not technical alignment.
The ALIGN Framework: How I Assess Chemistry
After 27 years of placing people into teams, I developed a framework called ALIGN specifically for assessing team chemistry. It’s not a replacement for technical assessment – it sits alongside it.
Alignment: Does this person share the team’s values around quality, speed, and purpose?
A mission-driven engineer joining a team that’s purely commercially motivated – or vice versa – will create tension that surfaces in every decision.
Learning Style: How does this person absorb new information and adapt?
Hardware development is constantly throwing surprises. You need people who can learn on the fly and adjust their approach when the physical world doesn’t match the simulation.
Integrity: Will this person raise concerns early, admit mistakes, and give honest feedback?
In hardware, a small error caught early is a quick fix. The same error caught after manufacturing costs six figures. You need engineers who speak up, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Growth: Is this person developing their skills and pushing the team forward?
In a startup, the engineer you hire today needs to grow into the lead you need in 18 months. If they’re not oriented toward growth, you’ll outgrow them before the product ships.
Navigating Conflict: How does this person handle disagreement?
Hardware teams argue. The mechanical design affects the electrical layout affects the software architecture. Healthy disagreement drives better products.
Toxic conflict kills companies.
You need people who can fight for their position without destroying the relationship.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Let me give you an example from my own experience.
A tech company I have worked with, and hired for 8 times in 6 years, needed a senior controls engineer. They’d been searching themselves for months, interviewing technically excellent candidates who kept failing to integrate with the existing team. The team was collaborative, fast-moving, and comfortable with ambiguity.
The candidates were all from larger, more structured environments.
It was my first vacancy with them… when I took over the search, I started by spending time with the existing team – not just reading job specs, but observing how they actually worked together.
I sat in design reviews.
I watched how they handled a production issue.
I understood their communication patterns, their decision-making speed, their tolerance for risk.
Then I assessed candidates not just on their controls engineering expertise, but on their alignment with these working patterns.
The person we placed wasn’t the most technically credentialled candidate in the pipeline. But they were the one who matched the team’s energy, communication style, and approach to problem-solving.
Just over six years later, that engineer is still there. And loving it.
They’ve become the technical lead.
The three candidates the company had previously tried to hire – all technically stronger on paper – lasted an average of four months each.
Chemistry isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the thing.
How to Start Building Chemistry Into Your Hiring Process
You don’t need to overhaul everything. But there are some changes that make an immediate difference.
Involve the existing team in the assessment. Not just as interviewers asking technical questions, but as collaborators on a real problem.
Give the candidate a hardware challenge that requires them to work with your team. Watch how they communicate, not just what they build.
Ask about past team failures, not just successes.
‘Tell me about a time a project failed and how your team handled it’ reveals more about chemistry than any LeetCode question. Listen for blame, deflection, and self-awareness.
Assess cross-disciplinary curiosity.
Can the firmware candidate ask intelligent questions about the mechanical design? Do they show genuine interest in how their work connects to the broader system?
In hardware teams, curiosity across disciplines is the highest predictor of long-term success I’ve found.
Check references for cultural fit, not just competence. When you speak to references, ask: ‘How did this person handle disagreement with a colleague from a different discipline?’ and ‘Would you want them on your team again?’ The second question is the most revealing one in recruitment.
The Bottom Line
Building hardware teams is harder than building software teams.
The physical world adds constraints, the cross-disciplinary dependencies add complexity, and the cost of a bad hire is measured in months and materials, not just lost productivity.
However the founders who build great hardware teams share one thing: they hire for chemistry alongside capability. They understand that a team of good engineers who work well together will outperform a team of brilliant engineers who don’t – every single time.
That’s what Chemistry First means.
It’s not about ignoring technical skills.
It’s about recognising that skills without chemistry create teams that look impressive but fail to deliver. And in hardware, failure isn’t a bug you can patch. It’s a prototype that doesn’t work and a deadline you’ve missed.
Build teams that have both.
Start with chemistry.
Ready to build a hardware team that actually works together?
Start with a Hiring Health Check – a focused 60-minute diagnostic where I’ll assess your current team dynamics, hiring process, and give you a clear plan for your next hire. Whether you’re building your first robotics team or scaling an existing one, I’ll tell you what you need to hear – not what you want to hear.
Helen Sanders is the founder of HFBAC (Hiring For and Building Awesome Companies), where she helps bootstrapped startups and growing companies build founding teams using her Chemistry First methodology. With 27 years in recruitment, a decade embedded with a leading robotics company, and seven years as the BBC’s first female football commentator, Helen brings a unique perspective on what makes teams succeed. Spoiler: it’s not the CVs.
