Best practices to find programmers

All companies, without exception, want to have outstanding teams of professionals that deliver top value for the job they perform. Putting together a strong team is essential to the success of your business organization and project. Specifically, in software engineering companies, the task of finding and hiring programmers is pivotal to the prosperity of any software endeavor.

Hiring programmers is challenging, to say the least. It is a task with many potential pitfalls and frustrations along the way, but once you find the right offering of talent, you will have a team of highly-skilled professionals who will commit to your project and carry it through to fruitful rewards.

In this article, we will discuss why startup companies must find programmers who align with their business strategy, business model, and corporate culture.

With no secret sauce or magic recipe, there are a few tools and best practices to follow to find programmers who are effective and have proven to produce great results.

• Look for above average talent. You want to surround yourself with individuals who bring talent, knowledge, and expertise to your table. By making the effort to look for extraordinary talent, you will find that they will deliver extraordinary results. Don’t be hesitant to be clear about what you are looking for and don’t settle for anything else. It helps to have a clear and defined job and skill description to ensure that profiles match the type of abilities you are interested in.
• Be upfront about the type of work challenges they will encounter in your company. Most of the time, it is wise to dig into your own archive of experiences and show candidates a real-life issue or challenge that your company dealt with to see what they would have done and how they would react under the given specific circumstances. That way, you can discover and understand their navigation path to solve problems, their know-how to mitigate risks and their expertise in rising to the challenge. By giving them a real-world scenario, you will gain a greater understanding of whether they would be a good fit for your company or not.
• Be open and responsive to emerging technologies. Sometimes, your way of doing things could be improved with an innovative, modern take. Programmers are usually aware of the latest trends in technology and tools to perform their job, so you shouldn’t be surprised if they suggest using a new tool or technique, because it might be an interesting road to explore. Do not be reluctant to embrace change; instead, be responsive and adapt quickly to new market trends. When you need to hire a programmer, you should focus on the way they approach a problem, their focus on algorithms, and their solution techniques, rather than the programming languages they have mastered. While it is important for programmers to be knowledgeable about a specific programming language you want to use, it is also important to recognize that it is easier to learn a programming language that to perfect problem-solving skills.
• Place a great value on communication skills. Some of the most highly-capable programmers have a hard time communicating effectively. But this is a skill you shouldn’t skip over, as it is essential to have members in your team who are great communicators, who can convey information accurately to ensure the successful delivery of software projects. It is best to avoid being in a position where your project suffers from the lack of communication because programmers or software engineers are not able to communicate appropriately about an issue or express a need for the project.
• Look for more than a good resume. A programmer’s resume is just the front door to the array of skills and abilities they can bring to your startup company. It’s important to recognize that a good resume, while beautiful to look at and filled with valuable information, is not an accurate representation of who a candidate actually is. It is very valuable to take the time to get to know the candidate through interviews, questions, exercises, and other methods to gain a better understanding of their skills and abilities. That way, you can weed out candidates who present themselves in the best light from the ones who actually shine in any setting.
• Make sure their coding skills are up to the challenge. Have no fear or qualms about testing your future programmer. Sometimes, there’s no better way than to see a real-life execution of an example to see their skill set in action, working their way through a specific problem, and coming up with the best possible solution. Testing their coding is vital to have a clear sense of their skill level, their areas of opportunity, and where they can become experts for your team.

These best practices help you find programmers, but what steps should you actually follow when you need to hire a programmer? In this following section, we provide some insight into what it takes to get the job done.

Need to hire a programmer? Follow these steps

There are different methods when trying to hire programmers or software developer. While your first stop might be to look for candidates on job boards, there are tech communities, freelance marketplaces. meetups, hackathons, conferences, and social media outlets you should consider as well to gain a more comprehensive picture of the current candidate population.

Here, we suggest a few steps to follow that will prove helpful in the task of hiring the best programmer available for your company.

1. Prepare the right list of questions to ask the candidate. The more clearly defined, the better. It is important to craft these questions in the hope of finding candidates that can provide smart, powerful solutions and answers to your inquiries.
2. Get help from experts to assess a candidate. Bring in subject matter experts and other experienced individuals who would work alongside your candidate. That way, you can easily identify if they would make a good fit and if they are up to the job, as evaluated by the experts.
3. Test their coding skills and technical knowledge. While everything may look pretty neat on paper, it is important to test the candidate’s coding skills and technical knowledge. Their job performance will depend greatly on their skills and ability to get the job done within the right framework of technical background and expertise.
4. Interview candidates with culture in mind. Corporate culture is a key factor to consider when hiring a programmer. You need to make sure the potential candidate has the right attitude and mindset to take your vision to fruition. This is a key ingredient for success to ensure candidates align with your business strategy and for them to thrive in the specific business atmosphere.
5. Be specific about the job description. Candidates should be completely aware of what exactly is expected of them. Avoiding confusion is critical to ensure a happy and healthy relationship with your candidate.
6. Make sure your offer and benefits package is attractive enough to lure the best talent possible. With the growing demand for programmers, you need to make sure your benefits package is strong. 

Why it’s important to find a programmer for startup companies

The reality is, your products and services have no real value unless there’s a talented team of people to create, build, deploy, and maintain them. In the specific case of startup companies, it is monumentally important to put together a resourceful team of professionals who can get the job done and beyond, right from the beginning.

Startup companies rely heavily on the success of their first months of operations. Thus, it is very important to have a strong development team from the get-go that can commit and align to the vision of your organization, taking it upon themselves to elevate the brand and product/service offering. The right programmers will fall in love not only with your product or service but also with your vision for the company and your strategy to get the expected outcome.

Given the rapid escalation in the number of companies needing programmers and developers, the best people are in high demand. This adds another layer of complexity for startup companies that may not have the starting capital to aim for great software engineers since the required salaries may be out of range.

A worthy solution to this dilemma is to outsource programming activities to an overseas company that offers a more flexible pay rate that is accessible to your startup company budget. While this solution does not come without its challenges, it is certainly one that brings an array of benefits to your business operation by alleviating the burden of having to hire programmers who are both in-house and part of a dedicated team.

Skills to focus on when looking for developers

Communication. Programmers and software developers should have strong communication skills to convey information accurately and to transfer knowledge.
Cultural fit. When looking for developers and hiring programmers, cultural fit is a fundamental factor that must be considered to ensure they will thrive in your business environment and take your company’s vision to heart.
User-oriented. Programmers should focus on the client first. This outlook will help them shape their style of work to look for the best results with the client or end user in mind.
Experience. For most tech companies, technical skills are not the most important hiring criteria. Instead, work experience plays a major role in what recruiters focus on when looking for developers as this adds a degree of richness to a candidate’s profile offering. You want someone who has dabbled in different scenarios and has risen to the challenge with winning results.
Capacity management. You want to look for programmers who are efficient and effective. Capacity management is an important skill for a programmer as they will have the ability to schedule work into a smart prioritization system.
Technical skills. The meat of their work will depend greatly on their level of technical skills. Programmers should have a strong knowledge of required programming languages, tools, techniques, and technologies to help them get the job done in the best possible way.

Now that we know a little bit more about what skills to look for in a programmer, let’s explore the popular job boards you can use to find programmers for hire.

Svitla Systems quality search for individual developers and teams

With a unique recruitment process, Svitla Systems has taken it upon itself to create a best-in-class approach that is based on industry best practices, to search for, attract, and hire the best experts in the market.

Svitla Systems prides itself in its quality search for individual developers and teams. The search for the best candidate is extensive yet swift, taking approximately up to 2 weeks to find a trusted partner for your software project which will result in the right fit for your company’s culture, as well as your technical and business requirements.

With a full array of talented architects, developers, programmers, software engineers, testers, and designers, Svitla Systems has the right candidate for your project. An added bonus is that the members of this elite group of professionals are experts in emerging technologies, giving a competitive advantage to your project.

The dedicated team of talented programmers works as part of your company, soaking up every aspect of your company’s identity and corporate culture. This helps them gain a greater insight into your vision and expected outcomes, delivering value every step of the way. In essence, programmers become an extended version of your own team, creating and delivering a seamless working experience.

Why Svitla?

Through unique engagement models, Svitla Systems delivers value to its clients. In specific, the Managed Team Extension model is a great option to have a team of talented programmers and engineers that work and operate as if they were a true part of your team - hence, an extension. Our team of resources has the mindset and commitment to align each customer’s goals and objectives to their day-to-day work, where they embrace the corporate culture and brand/identity to ensure consistency and reliability.

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