Finding developers in this tight labor market can be quite challenging. It sometimes feels like fishing in an empty pond. So, do you go to sea with the first fish you hook? We do not recommend that! But how do you find a developer that suits you? For that, we have a number of handy steps that will help you!
Step 1: What do you need?
The first step in finding a developer: start with yourself! Think about what you need when you hire a developer. So don’t start with a list of requirements that a developer must meet, but with a wish list for yourself. If you, for example, have no experience managing a team, you want someone who can help you with that. And don’t have much experience developing technical platforms? Then you need a developer who can set that up for you. You should then, for example, look for a business-minded developer who knows how the development process of a start-up works. You would then benefit less from a developer who can only code. In addition, it also depends on how busy you are. If you don’t have much time to manage developers, you should look for independent developers who know what the next step is. So, what do you need?
Step 2: Determine the skill set
Once you know what you need, you can look at what a developer needs to be able to do. What programming language should they speak? Should they be able to create architecture? Will your platform run on Digital Ocean or Trans IP? And should they have experience with it? We could go on, but the bottom line is that you need to clearly map out what skills developers need in order to build your platform. For example, some organizations expect developers also to know some marketing and Google Ads. There are developers who can do everything, but there are very few of them. It is, therefore, important that you know what you expect from a developer beforehand.
Step 3: The search for developers
Then the most difficult step in these times: where do you find developers? It’s not easy to get a programmer, so you really have to do your best. LinkedIn has become a good platform where you can post vacancies on the one hand, and on the other hand, you can search for suitable developers yourself. LinkedIn has search fields where you can specify what you’re looking for. In addition, there are online platforms like Upwork where you can find developers. LinkedIn and other platforms also offer you the opportunity to work remotely with foreign developers. Are you nervous about this? Please read more about our team in Bangladesh!
Step 4: Set up a good selection procedure
The final step is selecting the right developer, which can be quite difficult. For example, it’s hard to check if people can really do what they say and think they can do. Sometimes they lie, but not always. Sometimes developers think they can communicate very well, but in reality, they can’t always as good as they think. Checking a developer’s skills is a profession in itself. We always recommend setting up a formal recruitment process. Besides, there are also good methodologies to check whether developers can really do what they say. Finally: Score each candidate on all skills. You can then compare the scores of all candidates.
A strong team
The most important thing is to clearly understand what you expect from a developer. There are no ‘standard’ roles and everyone has their own definition of what something means. Therefore, clearly define what you expect from a developer and what that means to him. If you execute all steps correctly, you can be sure that you will have a strong team in the end! And if managing your team does not go smoothly at some point, we also have tips for how to solve that.
If you have none and don’t know where to start, our team is ready to help you and knows exactly what you need as a startup! Schedule a free consultation with us or read more about our approach!