Hire Developers: a smart guide to find talent

Dedicated development team from around the globe

In a world virtually interconnected in its entirety, physical location is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Now, companies have the option to hire developers from a global pool of talent that is available at all times from a huge number of service providers and with different pricing options. As we’ve discussed in previous articles, software outsourcing is a huge trend in the world of Information Technology, and with good reason, as it helps solve numerous challenges and constraints that companies want to deal with in a cost-effective and smart way.

A dedicated development team is at the tip of software outsourcing services offered by providers who seek to help clients alleviate the burden of hiring an in-house team of developers, which can be costly, time-consuming, and labor-intensive.

Depending on the type of project, companies must evaluate the development needs and hire developers accordingly. This approach applies also to hiring specialized software engineers and other related professionals such as testers, project managers, remote developers for startup projects, and more.

In this article, we cover the best practices and the reasons behind the decision that companies make to hire developers and dedicated development teams.

Next, we detail how to hire dedicated developers.

Hire dedicated developers with no pain

For some time now, it has been common knowledge that countries in the Western region of the globe have a shortage of skilled developers. In turn, this field has been growing consistently in other regions of the world where developers can be found with great ease and at a reasonable cost. A clear, global example of this is Ukraine,  which has become a powerhouse in terms of development technologies, resources, and specifically, development talent. There are other countries, such as Mexico, that are experiencing a growing demand for developers and other software engineering professionals. These two countries specifically cater to different time zones and accommodate numerous clients to ease communication and improve business relationships. For example, Mexico’s closeness, both geographically and in time zone, to the United States, add value to their service offerings. For its part, Ukraine offers a wealth of talent with specialized professionals who are experts in software development, making it an important global hub for software outsourcing for companies all over the world. 

But, what is a dedicated development team? Essentially, it is a form of software outsourcing where a dedicated team of developers combines affordable costs, top-notch technical skills, and commitment to a specific software project. It is a team of specialists who work on a software project and are solely dedicated to it until its completion. This approach works best for clients who have large, complex, and time-consuming projects as well as projects that involve numerous technologies, frameworks, 3rd party services, and more.

To hire dedicated developers, client-companies must take the leap and embrace hiring external employees with confidence. It is challenging to hire software developers whom you’ve never physically met, but it also comes with a hefty round of benefits as companies can save significantly on hiring costs, onboarding, training, recruitment efforts, and more.

To hire dedicated developers, software outsourcing companies have designed and put in place comprehensive recruitment strategies built from a set of the industry’s best practices to discover, gather, and provide the best development talents. 

These best practices to hire a developer typically include activities such as holding initial meetings with the client to understand the project’s scope, defining job descriptions of the desired software developer for hire, creating, maintaining, and updating an extensive database of potential candidates, leveraging unique recruitment tools, and holding technical interviews with potential candidates to ensure they meet or exceed the required technical and soft skills criteria, to name a few.

Naturally, hiring developers is an act kickstarted from answering the question of whether or not a company needs a specific developer resource. If so, the recruitment process begins for the outsourcing service provider where potential applicants are pre-screened and trialed. After the candidates go through the pre-screen and trial phase, they begin with the onboarding stage. This orientation stage guides developers through the operational activities and technical trials required for the project.

Here are a few tips on how to hire dedicated developers

• Consider hiring a few senior personnel to add experience and advanced knowledge to the software project. While it may cost a bit more, it will be rewarding to include such members in your dedicated development team for added strategic thinking, experienced know-how, intuition, and more.
• Besides focusing on technical skills, consider personality traits to ensure the team members will get along, work well together, collaborate, and share work seamlessly. Make sure to hire dedicated developers who work well as team members.
• Provide all the necessary tools the software development team will need to make their work easier and faster. It’s wise to consider asking them what software/hardware they require.
• Set the tone for a growing and nurturing environment where dedicated developers feel encouraged to grow professionally 

This is a high-level overview of how the process to hire developers usually flows for outsourcing companies that provide this highly-sought after model.

In the following section, we cover the task of hiring remote software developers and how companies benefit from this modern market trend: remote employment.

Reasons to hire remote software developer

As we mentioned before, our world is more interconnected than ever before. You can live thousands of miles away from your family and video-chat with them every day without a hiccup. While challenging, this interconnectivity brings people together and it’s the same for companies and talent located across the globe.

To hire remote software developer, it is important to realize that you are exposed to risks and challenges, but you are also likely to reap significant benefits that outweigh the likelihood of arising issues.

It’s not easy to hire in-house developers, mainly because it is expensive and time-consuming to hire talent that is geographically accessible with the required mix of skills for a specific software development project.

As more companies hire remote software developers, the trend for others to follow suit has become an interesting and popular inclination in software outsourcing, as developers can be found in any place in the world. Due to the competitiveness in the market, it can be relatively hard to find and hire software programmers as businesses journey through a period of digital transformation. 

Software developer job openings are on the rise and are only expected to grow over time, which spells fierce competition for the available positions at the moment. By deciding to hire remote software developer, client companies get to choose from a larger pool of talent, leveraging working models that yield more flexibility through remote working.

Tips to hire remote software developer

• Rely on industry-wide job search boards and career websites to look for remote employees in a professional environment. Also, pay notice to smaller job boards that cater to remote workers.
• Develop a comprehensive job definition and profile for the ideal remote software developer. A comprehensive profile will help filter candidates and design strategies to make the job opening more appealing to specific preferences.
• Thoroughly describe in full detail the entire scope of expected work for a job opening. This clear definition of the expected work helps potential candidates evaluate if they are right for the position and how their skills mesh with the project. Additionally, it is fundamental to provide as much information about the project, tasks, responsibilities, expected deliveries, and whether the project is long-term or short-term. 
• Detail the compelling reasons on why an opportunity is worthy to remote developers. As competition grows, it is important to offer a work environment that provides flexible working conditions, perks, a smart culture, comprehensive healthcare benefits, and more.
• Accelerate the screening process by developing a robust screening strategy. Provide potential candidates with a test project to gain a better understanding of their skill level and experience relevant to the job opening. 
• Take notice of the potential candidate’s soft skills that are a good fit for the position. A few soft skills to focus on for remote workers include time management, communications skills, ability to work in distributed teams, sense of responsibility and ownership, and adaptiveness.

Now that we shared a few tips on how to hire remote software developer, let’s review some of the best practices of finding a perfect Agile development team.

How to hire an Agile development team

In Agile-driven projects, it’s of the utmost importance to hire an Agile development team that is focused on delivering value for a project that runs smoothly and with every variable under control. There are several Agile frameworks to work with, for example, Scrum is a widely-used framework that works very well with Agile development. It’s important to keep this in mind when companies want to hire an Agile development team that has the necessary skills and technical background to achieve business goals within Agile’s iterative style of work.

The main goals of an Agile development team include creating business value quickly, creating a highly-collaborative environment, evaluating and adapting easily to changing requirements, and offering project transparency. These goals should align with the skills, expertise, and experience of the desired Agile development team, thus the recruiting process should focus on evaluating these criteria to ensure the potential candidates have what it takes to thrive in this sort of environment.

While there is no secret sauce to find a perfect Agile team, here are a few best practice essentials to consider when you are about to hire an Agile development team.

• Involve any existing team members in the hiring process to ensure a cultural fit between team members and to receive feedback in a more detailed and swift manner.
• Consider and define the skills that will benefit both the overall team and the product itself, alongside the technical skills that will pair well with the project’s scope.
• Focus on potential candidates who have experience in self-organizing teams and have proven to rise above technical concerns.
• Design a question/answer trial of soft skills and technical skills to filter candidates.
• Focus on building a high-performing team that applies engineering practices such as code reviews, task branching, continuous integration, and more.
• Make sure that team members have a mix of complementary skills, which they can use to benefit from one another. Oftentimes, employees grow through mentoring and shared skill sets, which is why it’s important to learn from one another and mentor one another.
• Team members must have outstanding problem-solving skills, as they are expected to think and work through challenging tasks on a daily basis. 
• Create a concise and straightforward job requisition with the essential skills and necessary background to attract the right candidates. By doing so, you can weed out developers who are likely to struggle in an Agile environment and focus on top-notch talent.
• Discover what Agile candidates value to identify if it aligns with organizational and team values. Through probing and open-ended questions, companies can tell how a candidate would perform in a variety of situations.

To put it simply, the success of an Agile development environment relies on the ability to create a highly-collaborative, cohesive team of dedicated developers with the willingness to learn and adapt. 

Now that we shed light on some of the most prominent aspects of how to hire an Agile development team, let’s talk about Svitla’s approach to dedicated development teams.

How does Svitla hire dedicated developers

Svitla Systems has over 15 years of experience in leveraging dedicated development teams. The model is called managed team extension, where our team of Svitla developers becomes an extension of your team. The extended team works solely and dutifully on your project, becoming an integral part of your team during the entire project. We carefully select each team member based on the requirements and expertise any given project needs. In this model, developers immerse themselves in the client’s project, upholding the company’s culture and working in line with strategic goals.

The managed team extension works best for developing new modules or applications, long-term cooperation projects, ongoing bug fixes, and support, providing quality assurance expertise, staying within budget, and saving time and resources.

At Svitla Systems, we’ve developed a unique recruitment process, based on industry best practices, that enables our recruitment team to find the best experts in the market. This vital part of a project life-cycle ensures a successful result. The typical candidate search is completed in 2 weeks.

The managed team extension process at Svitla Systems is comprised of these stages.

• Identifying client needs.
• Defining the job descriptions by assigning an HR specialist to work on openings, clarifying and analyzing job role requirements, estimating a budget, and involving technical experts as needed. Resources are assigned immediately as they meet the overall criteria.
• Fulfilling the Svitla Quality Search by selecting team members within an internal database of potential candidates that fully meet the project and the client’s criteria, selecting unique recruitment methods, and conducting HR interviews to ensure candidates match the professional and soft skill criteria.
• Performing an internal technical interview to evaluate a candidate’s technical skills to present the best candidates to the client.
• Sending the selected candidates to client review so they can assess if they are the right fit for their needs.
• Covering all HR onboarding procedures such as workplace arrangement, hardware equipment, social benefits, insurance, and more.
• Providing 24/7 support to solve any issues that may arise.

At Svitla Systems, we take care of client projects by continuously testing and incrementally improving them as needs and requirements change. A dedicated development team is beneficial for projects with a clear knowledge of the scope and reach of the expected results. Additionally, we hire developers with a strong sense of proactive commitment all through a project’s lifecycle.

With this being said, Svitla Systems main focus is to hire developers with the highest degrees of expertise, skills, knowledge, and experience. Our talented developers are committed to delivering business value and high-quality software solutions that transform your idea into a fully realized project.

Want to know more about Svitla’s service offerings to hire developers successfully? Reach out to us and we will be happy to help you!