Top 10 Tips for Hiring a Good Developer

By / December 8, 2016 /

An experienced entrepreneur understands that the difference between effectively launching a product and falling in the dungeon of failure is a quality team. Hiring a developer can be the most difficult task when it comes to selecting team members, particularly for entrepreneurs who possess little or no coding skills. Here’s a list of 10 tips to consider while hiring good developers:

Evaluate skill and culture details: Jot down all the must-haves the person requires in order to fill the position. It may not be possible to find a perfect candidate but you can get close to perfection. In case you plan to hire an iOS developer then he/she needs to have the knowledge of story boarding, multi-threading and Objective C. Evaluate these factors during your initial call. It would be great if they are familiar with Java for sockets or back end but remember that this skill won’t be needed on a regular basis. So, don’t toss out candidates on the pretext that they do not possess this experience. If you are a remote team, it may not be a good culture to choose someone who requires daily assistance. Understand your company culture and ask questions concerned with the kind of working environment that the developer favors.

Understand market price: Some entrepreneurs are of the view that they can get good talent at low prices. The demand of developers is only rising and freelance developers charge hourly for their skills. It’s important that you get a good know-how of the market price or you may end up losing a great opportunity. Assign your project a budget and discern the skill set you will receive for that budget.

Seek team players: You’ll easily come across engineers who prefer working alone. This thing is okay if they have to type code the entire day but when it comes to responding to requests in a timely fashion, they shouldn’t complain about participating in daily and weekly SCRUM meetings. Ensure that your engineer will communicate on a daily basis and also assist other team members who tend to fall behind but are important for the project.
Developer should be efficient in hitting deadlines: Iteration cycles and product roadmap deliverables drive software development and these factors are tied to deadlines. Ask your developer questions about hitting deadlines and what will happen if they fail to hit their deadlines and what they will do to alert their manager in case they fall behind.

Determine the standard of your developer: Determine the standard of your engineer when it comes to coding so that you can establish whether or not you’ll have crashes and bugs. You also need to ensure that these bugs do not cause any problem for the next developer who’ll work on the code. Standards that are consistent with multiple aspects of your business need to be employed and followed in order to ensure quality.

Employee should be open to feedback: One of the major problems that an employer comes across is an employee who cannot take feedback. A good employee is the one who takes coaching and also wants coaching. Such employees offer lasting visibility at a company.

Evaluate their portfolio: Some developers may send you links to their portfolio. It’s important that you do not get fooled by it as it’s a buggy product. Request your developer to see a demo of their portfolio and also check their references to ensure that they actually worked on the project.

Rapid prototyping tests: Rapid prototyping of a feature lets you determine if your developer is actually adept at a specific skill set. Analyzing your developer code and having him/her walk you through the process will let you understand if they are a good fit for your organization.
Be patient: Rushing may get you the wrong developer. Build a process that comprises of a phone screening, a peer interview, an in-person interview and also a rapid prototyping test. Following these steps will assure you that your chosen person is skilled and a good cultural fit.

Developer should have a good network: Make sure that your chosen developer has access to other developers. Hiring web developers can be an expensive process and an engineer who is capable of convincing others for joining your team in the future possesses a leadership quality and is a great asset to the company.

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