Personally, I’d begin from figuring out company strategy and how the team will deliver on it and what KPIs I’d use to measure the team’s output. I’d then map ou

Personally, I’d begin from figuring out company strategy and how the team will deliver on it and what KPIs I’d use to measure the team’s output. I’d then map out what are the strengths and weaknesses of the team including skills gaps. This will include things like seniority, ability to deliver at an individual level. Since there’s only one team member so far, this would be more of a plan/roadmap of the team you’d like to grow into. Junior members are great at knowledgeable tasks but may lack real-world experience to understand tooling, deliver quality work and put something into production (not always - there are exceptions of course). Since you’re in R&D, this may not be a huge factor/risk so junior engineers may be a good fit. I’d be happy to discuss further over a call if you’d like. Happy to share my experience growing teams from 1 to 200.