How to Build a Startup Tech Team: Roles Explained Through a Shopping Mall Analogy

CTO = contractor; Data Engineer = traffic planner; Backend Engineer = electrical engineer; Frontend Engineer = civil engineer; UI/UX = interior designer.

In today’s startup scene, non‑technical founders must at least grasp basic technology concepts, understand how to form a tech team, and know what kinds of people to hire.

Zhi Peng Lee, founder and CEO of 40Tasks, shares his perspective. With over six years of programming and tech project‑management experience, he launched 40Tasks last year, whose flagship product is the flash‑sale app LOCO.

Lee likens executing a tech project to constructing a shopping mall, using the analogy to detail the necessary team roles and their responsibilities.

1. Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Just as a mall’s main contractor must be experienced, understand all aspects of construction, gather requirements, create blueprints, hire specialists, and coordinate work, the CTO acts as the technical “main contractor.” The CTO must understand business needs, translate them into technical blueprints, recruit engineers, devise an action plan, and oversee execution.

2. Database Engineer

In a mall, traffic planners assess visitor flow, elevator and stair placement, and space allocation to maximize usage without congestion. Similarly, a database engineer treats data as the mall’s customers, ensuring efficient storage, fast queries, load handling, backup, and recovery.

Popular database tools include MySQL, PostgreSQL, as well as NoSQL options like MongoDB and Couchbase.

3. Backend Engineer

Structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers build the mall’s foundation, install utilities, and manage control systems. Backend engineers perform the analogous work in tech teams, adding core functionalities and ensuring system stability.

For example, a typical backend stack might use Go for API development, Couchbase and MongoDB for databases, Python for scripting and middleware, and Redis for caching, each managed by dedicated backend engineers.

4. Frontend Engineer

Civil engineers construct walls, floors, lighting, doors, and windows to make the mall attractive. Frontend engineers similarly design the user‑facing part of websites or apps, turning backend APIs into engaging interfaces that meet business needs.

In the LOCO flash‑sale app, frontend engineers consume backend APIs to implement features across mobile and web platforms.

Common frontend tools include Swift for iOS, Java for Android, and web frameworks like Ruby on Rails, HTML/CSS, and AngularJS.

5. UI/UX Designer

After the core construction, interior designers and landscapers enhance the shopping experience. UI/UX designers perform the final polish on a product, testing user flows, ensuring functionality, improving experience, and conducting user acceptance testing (UAT) to remove unnecessary features.

This analogy aims to help startup founders without a technical background understand each tech‑team role and its responsibilities when building an effective development team.