What we learned from NORDEEP: Six truths about deep tech talent in 2026
Reflections from the Nordic Deep Tech Business Summit, 16–17 September 2026.
The tech will hook us. The team will make or break it.
That was our first takeaway from NORDEEP. By the end of the second day, conversations about investment, life sciences and research spinouts had added plenty of substance to it.
Who understands the customer? Who can turn a scientific breakthrough into a product? How do you convince an experienced specialist to join a company with years of development ahead? And how do you support the people carrying that responsibility?
For Finland’s deep tech ecosystem, these are practical questions about turning scientific strengths into companies that can grow.
For us at Finders Seekers, they are also talent questions. Here are six lessons we’re taking into our work with founders and growing teams.
1. Commercialisation starts with understanding the customer—and someone needs to own it
Across the NORDEEP discussions, speakers returned to a deceptively simple question: who needs what you’re building?
Antti Vasara discussed the importance of explaining the problem a technology solves and the market it serves. In life sciences, the discussion made clear how much work can sit behind identifying the customer.
The patient who benefits, the professional who uses a product and the organisation that pays for it may all be different.
That has consequences for hiring. “We need a commercial person” is a starting point, but it leaves a lot unanswered. Does the company need help understanding clinical workflows, securing industrial pilots, developing partnerships or building a repeatable sales process?
Those are different jobs.
The talent implication: Define the next commercial milestone before defining the role. The clearer you are about what someone needs to accomplish, the better your chances of finding relevant experience.
Early customer discovery also needs the founding team’s involvement. Hiring expertise should strengthen that understanding, with founders staying close to what customers are saying.
2. A complementary team needs room for different expertise
Investors repeatedly emphasised the team behind the technology. Coachability came up too: can founders listen, consider a different perspective and adapt?
Bringing in someone with commercial experience only helps if they can influence decisions. The same applies to a specialist in product development, manufacturing or another area the company needs to strengthen.
This requires an honest conversation about responsibilities. What will the founder continue to own? Where will the new person have authority? How will the team work through disagreement?
The life sciences discussion also challenged the idea that every researcher should follow the same entrepreneurial path. Some enjoy building a company and learning the commercial side. Others want to focus on the science. Both can make valuable contributions.
The talent implication: Build around the strengths and ambitions of the people involved. Assess how potential colleagues think together, challenge assumptions and share responsibility, alongside their individual credentials.
A complementary team works because its members can use their differences.
3. The right hire is connected to a milestone, not just a funding round
One challenge raised in the spinout discussion was finding the right people to scale at the right time. Experienced specialists can be expensive, difficult to find and difficult to convince.
Meanwhile, scientific development does not always follow a predictable schedule. Research, product development and customer learning may all be progressing at once.
That makes copying another startup’s hiring plan a poor substitute for understanding your own needs.
A company preparing a pilot may need a different profile from one preparing production. A business with early customer interest may still need to understand how purchasing decisions are made before it builds a larger sales team.
The talent implication: Connect each planned hire to a clear milestone and a capability gap. Consider what needs to sit permanently within the team and where an adviser, board member or specialist partner can help.
For founders considering a talent partner, the useful question is: do we know what this person needs to achieve, and do we have the capacity and expertise to find them?
That point can arrive at seed, Series A or later. The funding label alone does not tell the whole story.
4. Your technology needs to make sense to potential employees
Deep tech founders need to explain why their technology matters to customers and investors. The NORDEEP conversations prompted another question for us: how well does that explanation translate to candidates?
A potential employee is considering a personal commitment. They may be leaving an established organisation, moving countries or joining a small team with considerable uncertainty ahead.
They need to understand what they would be joining.
What problem is the company solving? What has it already demonstrated? What remains uncertain? What would this person help make possible?
This is where employer branding becomes concrete. The work involves making a complex opportunity understandable and giving people an honest picture of the role.
The talent implication: Build the explanation around the candidate’s contribution. Describe the problems they will work on, the people they will work with and the decisions they can influence.
At Finders Seekers, this is where talent attraction and recruitment come together. A clear role and a credible employer story give relevant people a reason to start a conversation.
5. Deep tech talent needs vary across the ecosystem
“Deep tech talent” covers a wide range of expertise.
Quantum computing, space technology, industrial sensing and life sciences share some challenges, but the experience needed to take their products forward can differ substantially.
Finland’s technology landscape makes that breadth visible. IQM, ICEYE and Vaisala are relevant reference points across quantum computing, space technology and industrial measurement. They represent different technologies, company stages and working environments.
Among the companies that caught our attention around NORDEEP were LifeGlue Technologies, the company behind Glue4Life, alongside Medlyse, VitalSigns and MultivisionDx. Their work spans biomaterials, breath analysis, physical examination technology and tissue-based diagnostics.
For a candidate, the specific application matters. So does the stage of development. Someone drawn to exploratory research may want a different role from someone motivated by industrialisation or customer deployment.
The talent implication: Explain the specific combination of domain expertise, development stage and working environment a role requires. Look beyond familiar job titles when considering where relevant experience might come from.
Finders Seekers’ role in this ecosystem is as a talent partner: helping growing technology companies define their needs, reach relevant people and build an employer brand that supports hiring. Connecting companies and talent requires understanding both sides of that decision.
6. The team needs to be able to sustain the journey
Some of the most memorable discussion at NORDEEP concerned the human side of entrepreneurship.
Moving from a research organisation into a startup can mean leaving an established community and infrastructure behind. Founders may suddenly be responsible for funding, customers, hiring and leadership alongside the technology itself.
The conversations addressed the role of boards and investors in supporting founders through that transition. They also returned to the long development journeys that deep tech can involve.
For us, this adds an important dimension to team building. Complementary expertise can help distribute responsibility, but only if people have trust, clear roles and room to raise concerns.
The talent implication: Consider what a hire changes for the existing team. Will they reduce a critical dependency on one founder? Bring experience of the next stage? Take ownership of work that currently has no clear home?
Building a team also means creating the conditions for people to contribute over time.
Finland’s deep tech opportunity is also a talent opportunity
NORDEEP brought researchers, founders, investors and industry together around the challenge of turning science into businesses.
Talent partners have a practical part to play in that ecosystem. Once a company understands the capabilities it needs, it still has to find, attract and hire people who can contribute—and give them a reason to stay.
That is where Finders Seekers wants to contribute: helping deep tech companies build teams with the expertise and complementary strengths their next stage requires.
The conversations at NORDEEP reinforced how closely customer understanding, team composition and talent attraction are connected. Each affects the others.