In 2021, every company will require software developers, technical help, and digital assistance to ensure their business runs and functions correctly. It can be challenging for a startup to find software developers and hire them accordingly. Budget constraints and lack of proper technical knowledge can make it difficult for companies looking to hire a software developer.
But it’s not necessary for every startup founder to be technically sound and skilled to find and hire a skilled team. And there are many other budget-friendly options for managing your own technical team.
Likewise, many other important business functions require your attention. It might not be possible for you to forget everything else and just focus on your technical team. Also, let’s not forget at this age, team diversity and experts are crucial for the success of a business. And did you know many businesses fail due to a lack of a proper team?
So, it’s crucial to understand the types of technical team, where to find developers, and how to hire them to make a wise choice.
Why is it important to choose the right software developer for the job?
“Quality and economic prosperity go hand in hand.” If you strive for a quality product or service, you will naturally be in a better position in the future than you are now. Almost every company in first-world countries, especially Australia, has a digital presence to reach its target audience.
Your company’s software platform( mobile application and websites) directly or indirectly speaks volumes about your network reach and your audience’s understanding. Hence, it’s crucial to understand the types of full-time software developers, the vetting process to find web developers, and job boards. Even when hiring freelance software developers for a job, you should set your top priority and need instead of looking for freelance candidates.
Types of Software Developer Team
Generally, your technical team can be classified into the in-house software development team and freelance developers team.
In-house Software Developers
This is the traditional way to hire a developer. In simple words, the in-house software development team can be understood as a team of software developers you hire and manage. The software developer has to come to the office full-time at the said time and complete the given work. In return, your company pays the software developer a salary and provides other facilities like a bonus, lunch, dental and insurance, etc.
In the vetting process of an in-house team, you look for developers with varying levels of experience. You hire entry-level developers to groom them for the long term, and you hire an experienced software developer to immediately bring positive changes to your software development team.
Freelance Development Team
Hiring freelance software developers isn’t a new concept. But it has been gaining a lot of hype due to technological advancement. The freelance software engineers team can be understood as the team you hire on a contract basis. They work at their convenient place and don’t have to come to your office to work. They can stay at home or in a park or coffee shop, wherever they feel comfortable working. Some of the freelance models of the offshore software development team provided are:
- The remote working developer team
- Outsourcing (can be project outsourcing or developer team outsourcing)
- Staff Augmentation
- Dedicated developer team
Different ways to find the best software developers
A. In-house Software Developer team
Find the best Software Developers on social media platforms
Social media is a great place to post your vacancy information for developers. There are many groups where you can post your job vacancy details. Similarly, you can run ads on social media relevant to your business. For instance, you can run Linkedin ads to reach professionals and experts in different fields. Social media works for finding offshore teams too. You can easily target your ads to the countries where you seek the service.
Search specialized Software Developer communities
There are lots of software developer communities. If you haven’t joined them yet, I suggest you do. Your professional network can recommend another upcoming developer with excellent coding skills. Or, they can indicate a student or a person with many capabilities. This makes finding the right software developer faster. As a result, you can effortlessly find programmers without any hassle.
Search Developers at co-working spaces
Co-working spaces are another great place to network and reach out to a greater mass of developers. You might get developers over there or other companies’ founders or HR who can help you contact the developers. Similarly, you can find developers from:
- Tech conferences
- Tournament platform
- Meetup platforms and hackathons
- Personal network
Staff referral
One of the best ways to find technical developers who perfectly fit within the company’s nature is by making your network and staffs recommend them. The staff recommends the perfect match for the organization as they know what skills your organization is looking for. Plus, they would want someone in their team who can complete the given work on time.
However, the quality of recommendation depends upon the employee you have. If your stack developer is hardworking and highly skilled, they would want to work with equally talented and hardworking people as a developer. But if your stack developer is average, then they may suggest someone worse than them make it look as if they are better.
Get great developer candidates at Job Boards
Job boards are great for hiring developers for your websites. They are similar to “search engines for job candidates.” Many industries use job boards to recruit the best and most talented candidates. A software developer may use it to find a suitable developer company for them. Likewise, software development companies might use them to search for the best website developer candidates.
B. For the freelance team
Find developers through a staff augmentation company
The recruitment process can be devastating if you’re living in America and want to recruit a remote employee from Australia. So, the best way of getting over this is by contacting local recruiters. There are lots of companies providing staff augmentation services. You can easily find one. We also offer staff augmentation services. So, we know exactly how this works.
First of all, they will look over your requirement and keep you in contact with the developers who meet the requirement. After that, you can select and hire the one you like. You can pay the local recruiters a certain amount, they say. They will manage and maintain the resources, infrastructures, and the developer to ensure the developer doesn’t leave your project in the middle.
Freelance portals
Have you heard about Upwork? Or Fiver? If yes, you know these are the freelancing sites where different freelancers work on the project. The project assigned here is temporary. However, that’s not part of our concern. You can find tons of freelance developers on freelance portals. You can contact and hire the one whose work impresses you.
Find developers through local software agencies.
Another great way to find developers is by contacting local software agencies in that area. Chances are they have information about different developers in that area. They can tell you everything you need to know about the developer, like the actual skill they possess, and whether they can develop a well-functioning app.
Agency Partnership
If your project and requirement are more significant, opting for an agency partnership is better. The company will provide you with technical support and assistance in an agency partnership. They work and coordinate with you and complete your project. You can get the whole technical team, i.e., project manager, QA engineers, front-end developer, back-end developer, and other members as necessary.
Recruitment Portals
Last but not least, you can post your job vacancies on recruitment portals, and your inbox will be flooded with a CV and cover letter. However, it might not be easy to interview them to find the best ones to contact the recruitment portals and tell them to find you one. They will be able to find you a perfect match without any hassle. If you decide to hire through recruitment portals, we suggest you opt for a staff augmentation company. As the staff augmentation company will do the same, they have contact with highly skilled professionals and manage resources and infrastructures.
Tips for hiring developers
1. Is the developer smarter than you?
If yes, then hire him or her. You want to hire a programmer with more technical skills and expertise than you. The person should be able to help your company reach new heights of success. So, it’s always advisable to hire someone smarter than you.
2. Give the developers a real-life technology problem
Knowing a programming language or using specific tools and methods isn’t a big deal. Unless you’re able to solve a real-life situation with it. The main motive behind programming is to solve the issue prevalent for years or reduce the repetitiveness nature of work. The interviewee should solve a real-life technology problem to prove his qualification and skills are worth it.
3. What is the developer’s flexibility level with programming languages and tools?
A programmer can be an expert in one specific programming language and tools while having basic knowledge about other languages and tools. And it’s better to work with such a programmer than with someone who knows one language by heart but cannot do anything in another language. Also, once developers know all the programming basics, they shouldn’t have much difficulty working with another language. Thus, you should hire a flexible programmer with other languages and tools.
4. Don’t forget you should hire a developer with good communication skills
Communication skills are critical, and a good developer needs to master these skills. If a developer lacks proper communication, it can hamper your business a lot. S/he needs to communicate the requirements likewise and adequately receive the information given by your clients properly. No matter how well of a programmer the person is, s/he needs good communication skills to ensure your business’s smooth functioning.
5. Make sure you have another person in an interview to give an unbiased opinion
Sometimes we can be biased towards someone without even knowing it. This is common while working in a team. A leader or manager can be biased toward a person without even knowing. Similarly, it can happen in an interview too. So, it’s better to keep another person in an interview. This way, you will be sure there is no nepotism or biases from your side. Plus, you can hire an employee with relevant skills and expertise.
6. Set some expectations and talk about them with candidates.
It’s always better to set some expectations for the vacant position before interviewing a person. Rather than what you want that person to do, it’s more like what you wish that job position to do. Once you have decided on all the expectations you have from the vacant job position, discuss them. And figure out whether the interviewee will be able to carry out the functions or not.
7. Shift your focus from the resume to search how much skill the right candidate has
Often, recruiters and managers can be so focused on the resume that they shift all of their focus on the resume rather than the person’s actual skills. For instance, if you receive a resume of someone who has done engineering from a highly reputed college and has job experience from a big company, you would be a bit more biased towards that person.
Just by looking at the resume, you have made up your mind that the person is highly skilled, and it would be nice to have someone like that person in the job. But in the same case scenario, if the same person’s resume states that he has done engineering from some college whose name you have never heard and has worked in a small company, then you wouldn’t be biased toward that person even if he might be the best candidate. Chances are, you might not hire him. So, it would help if you shifted your focus from your resume to the person’s actual skills.
8. A candidate who loves to help and code/program is the one
Coding can be repetitive and boring to someone who isn’t passionate about it. However, someone passionate about coding will be happy to work overtime and give 100%. Because you know they are doing what they love. And work is fun when you’re doing something you love. Otherwise, you can see them making excuses for not coming to the office or why they didn’t complete the work in time. So, finding and hiring someone passionate about coding and eager to learn more is better.
9. Does the developer write messy codes?
A person might be highly skilled and write algorithms. But if the written codes are messy, then it’s useless. Because nobody can understand what the person is trying to do, and suppose the person resigns tomorrow. You hire a new person to take over the job; then, it would be a total nightmare for the recruit to understand the messy code. In this way, the whole code becomes a waste, and chances are it has to be written once again.
Consequently, the messy code tends to increase the overall cost. So, it’s better to hire developers who write clean codes. It is beneficial for your company in the long run.
10. Does the developer fit in the team?
This must be the most crucial factor when hiring a developer. The person needs to be culturally fit in the team. Without it, perfect coordination and collaboration aren’t possible within the team. But how can we find whether the person is an ideal fit for the team or not? I suggest rather than asking ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, ask personal behavioural questions. Questions like the one Elon Musk ask – “Tell me about some of the most difficult problems you worked on and how you solved them.” – will help you better understand what sort of person you are interviewing.
However, before determining whether the person is fit for your team or not, you should know what kind of person you’re searching for. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you will never find it. So, the first step has to be determining your business work environment. Then you must consider the team’s personality with whom the new hire will work. Lastly, it would help if you prepared questions to identify whether the person is fit for your company. And if the interviewee answers the problem in a way that makes them look good or doesn’t reflect their real personality, then it’s better to ask them to come around for another round of interviews.
Conclusion
Finding the right developers for your team is essential for driving success and achieving business goals. Whether you opt for in-house developers or freelance talent, it’s crucial to consider factors like technical skills, communication abilities, and cultural fit. By leveraging various hiring strategies, such as social media platforms, developer communities, co-working spaces, and job boards, you can effectively locate and attract top talent. Additionally, following hiring tips like setting clear expectations, focusing on skills over resumes, and ensuring candidates are passionate about coding can make a significant difference.
As an app development company, Wolfmatrix understands the importance of building a robust team that aligns with your business needs. Our app development services for businesses in Australia are designed to provide innovative solutions tailored to your specific requirements. By implementing these strategies and tips, you can assemble a team that not only fits your organisational culture but also drives your projects to success.
Passionate engineer who loves talking about Machine learning and ways to improve Software development practices. CEO and Director of Software Engineering of Wolfmatrix.