How do you recruit great developers?
Our site is growing every month, but I'm struggling to find a great development team. Over the past 10 months we've had 3 mis-hires and I'd really like some advice on how to find great developers to work with. Here are a few routes I've tried but haven't had luck up to this point:
- TopTal, Upstack, CodeMentors, etc: I've worked with many of these sites and every time they've sent me someone who was way overpriced for the skillset. I'm assuming it was the middle-man fee that I was stuck paying for using their service.
- Upwork: I've posted a number of projects, but haven't found the talent to be up to par what we're looking for.
- Direct Recruiters: they wanted 20% of the annual salary for the developer.
- CloudDevs.io: I recently tried this site, to see if it could produce a different result. But after 3 weeks, I hadn't heard back from their team.
Why are there so many bad options? I am not a developer, but I have worked with developers for the past 15 years. As you're building your startup, where would you recommend searching to find a high-quality developer?
As @skatkov mentioned, high-profile developers have a very sensitive bullshit meter. They get tons of offers every day on LinkedIn and email (trust me, I'm hit by this as well) and when it comes to them actively searching for a new job, they have a very clear idea on what type of environment, company and tech stack they want to work with.
What is your expectations for a developer? Are you searching for just one or two? What is the scope and deadline of the project? Are you searching for in-house talent or remote?
I can give you some more clear tips if i know this. :)
I am looking for one Lead developer at the moment, but will eventually need to scale it up to another developer. We are in the process of re-developing our entire marketplace. We don't have a specific deadline in place at the moment as I'll need to get that feedback/insight directly from the developer. Otherwise, the developer will be a critical part of the team as we will have continual development to be adding to the site.
The position will be remote, as all of our team are remote, and we're looking for the best talent we can get where they are located.
Thank you!
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
I've been running a dev shop for a long time and in my experience, the nr. 1 reason for hiring issues is that salaries are too low.
Money sometimes can be replaced with the possibility to learn from senior devs, but this will only work in the short run. Once your junior is trained you'll have to increase payment otherwise she/he will leave.
I'm not saying that devs are all about money, but it is a basic requirement, all the rest comes on top of that.
Also, a good dev is exactly like @skatkov says. I would not go for the leaderboard winners, instead, focus on communications and output.
Fortunately, this hasn't been my experience. I've worked with dozens of developers over the past 15 years and oddly enough the more I've paid, the bigger the problems have been. I've worked with some incredible developers at a low to mid-level.
I wish the problem was as easy as throwing money at it and it would be solved. If that were the case, TopTal would be an incredible resource, but from what I've seen it's extremely expensive compared to what I've had over the 15 years.
Ok, I'm gaining more confidence in this as I continue to hear it. Thank you!
As a freelance developer (probably your target market), I must say, that high-quality developers don't apply to a lot of jobs. And are really picky with job offers, especially on Upwork where he has to pay for "connects".
As a person, who hired before as a CTO, I would suggest that the correct question in this situation would not be "where", but "how". I'd start off by posting job offer text you're sending out/posting on those websites and work more on that.
Developers have very sensitive bullshit meters.
First of all, thanks for the comment, I really appreciate it! Would you be willing to expand on what you mean by "how" in the job post offer text? Do you any suggestions or ideas on what typically you feel could get more attention?
As you mentioned about not applying for a lot of jobs, I'd agree with that 100%, which makes it a lot harder to get the right candidates. I recently came across this site: https://codersrank.io/ and have considered contacting some of the higher profiles on the leaderboards. As a developer would be put off with this approach if someone had seen your profile and wanted to see if you were available or interested in a specific job opportunity?
I saw in your profile that you are a software consultant, would you be open to expanding on what that entails? I need to change up my approach, because what I've been currently doing isn't working and I'd love to get some help.
@thestart
so, I don't personally use term "freelancer" or "developer" and opt-in for "software consultant" -- since my background involves a lot of hands-on management experience. I've been leading engineering teams, projects and was a CTO at the company. I still work as a developer for my customers, but my versatile experience helps me to consult my clients beyond just technical issues -- I can build up a team, help with requirements, analyze project risks or just figure out how to effectively build product while constantly validating market fit (do more, with less).
It's a viable approach. But it also depends on what kind of product are you actually building? does it involve a lot of complicated brainteasers/puzzles/algorithms? If not, why do you think that people who enjoy those would be happy to push pixels left and right for you?
Have you had experience dealing with really good developers? Do you remember what sets them apart from everyone else? I have doubts that brainteasers is the answer.
I generally consider that good developer should be:
So my vetting process is built around all of these. I don't even evaluate coding skills as much -- all of that could be learned or if work involves some complicated algorithm I would hire a separate developer just to do that one-off gig.
Can you publish your job offer here? It's just interesting how much warning bells will go off in my head while reading it.
Sorry, one more question! From the list of items you mentioned are the most important things to consider with a good developer. How do you test that before hiring? Do you have a certain way you go about doing so?
In the past, I have given developers a simple test project to try to get a good gauge on how they communicate back and forth, but I've also seen it can be an annoyance and time consuming to have developers build a test project that I'll essentially just throw away. Also, some of the better developers won't even do it.
Is there a short/simple way to test those exact skillsets without annoying the developer and taking so much time?
I consider that interview is a two-way street. You're trying to learn more about applicants and applicants should be learning more about you and business with every step. Giving a coding assignment for a "throw-away" project doesn't really give an opportunity to learn anything about your business. And those assignments, even paid, in a lot of cases are just boring and feels like a waste of time.
I usually try to give a real assignment, with a real problem that we're having. If a company maintains an open-source project or depends on one, then I could ask the applicant to solve certain issues for that project.
So, I usually split my interview in 3 parts:
Yes, I could say that what we're building is a bit more complicated. Our marketplace does include multiple algorithms (i.e. ranking, sorting, matching, etc). In addition a constant innovation on the user experience for both our buyers and sellers.
Yes, this is what has ruined me the most...haha! I've worked with a few great developers and still do on different projects. But none of them are Ruby Developers and no matter how much I've begged them to become a Ruby developer, they are staying within their existing skillsets. As I've searched for Ruby developers, I haven't found one with equal caliber. I've had a few mis-hires and it's causing me to re-think my approach.
Yes! Communication is the single biggest factor that sets them apart. Second is their ability to tackle a tough project. Many times, it's back and forth research, as well as reaching out to different support platforms to get more insights, etc. But the ability to tackle a complicated project and to break it down into bite-size tasks, we've eventually worked through most the problems that we've been thrown.
Otherwise, everything you mentioned is spot on!!
This is where, I've been more hesitant since I'm not a developer. Maybe it's just my own thoughts that someone needs to be a ninja developer and I need to get out of my own way. I just prefer that someone already knows a certain skillset and we're not having to spend a ton of time with them in the learning phase. In a previous career I was an SEO consultant and with developers I saw more damage done, than was helpful. I've spent years cleaning up the SEO for a website that was poorly coded and I much prefer building it the correct way the first time.
For the one-off gigs, where do you typically recommend finding/hiring someone to do those? I've started to test out https://www.codementor.io/ and have had some success, but would like to see if you have another approach?
I don't fully know my way around IndieHackers yet. Where would I post it? Or are you just saying to post it as a comment?
Yeah, post it here in comments. We can help you get your pitch to developers in order and give you a different perspective on your "requirements". :)
It's interesting, but I actually specialize mostly in ruby and lost a couple of clients due to a virus. If you are interested in maybe working with me -- you can send me more details about the biggest issues with your project at sk(at)skylup(dot)com.
I don't have an answer for you that you're looking for, I guess. With all the platforms I've had mixed success and failure stories. But I think attending conference and meetups for developers has been most beneficial for me i nthis sense. I found a lot of passioned and interesting developers that way.
Remote | Full Stack Lead Developer | Full-Time | FunnelRolodex.com
As a sister company to ClickFunnels.com ($9M MRR), we are a digital marketplace, connecting their 103k paying clients to freelancers. We are looking for a full stack developer to enhance the platform to improve the user experience and usability for all our users (buyers/sellers).
Requirements:
User Experience: We're looking for someone who understands what it takes to deliver a quality user experience. There is a massive difference between building what is simple from a development perspective and ultimately delivering the best user experience. You will need the ability to see and feel what it's like for a first time user going through the projects you develop.
Communication, Communication, Communication: We are looking for a developer who understands the importance of team communication. Working remotely requires an added layer of good communication. It's important to keep the team up to date on what you're working on and if you're running into any issues, that you're clearly communicating them to the team so we can work together to figure them out.
Timelines/Deadlines: Understands the importance of setting and hitting deadlines. Each project you will be expected to set an estimate on how long it will take to accomplish and the work towards hitting that target.
Detail-oriented: Someone who pays attention to detail and cares about the quality of their work, enough so that none of the details slip between the cracks. With each of your commits, it will be important that your notes are accurately reporting what was updated within each of the commits.
Development Stack: Rails, PostgreSql, jQuery, React, Slim, Github, Heroku, Stripe/Paypal.
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
If you are not a developer one of the best options for you might be bringing in a technical partner/co-founder and solve any dev needs you have with his help. He can be responsible for hiring and managing a remote team from Eastern Europe or India or wherever you like.
Hi!
I'm actually finalizing a blog post about THIS that will probably post tomorrow.
I call it "agile recruiting" and it's really worked for me!
Stay tuned :)
Awesome, I'm really looking forward to it. Would you tag me once it's live? I'd love to see any new approach that has worked out well for others.
Here you go :)
https://jonathanoron.substack.com/p/agile-vs-waterfall-employee-recruitment
Awesome, thank you! Your article is spot on! I've actually used a very similar process for hiring copywriters. I'll hire multiple copywriters to produce the same content, to then measure the process of working with them (more important) and the content they produce (important, but less important).
With me being non-technical, I've lacked the confidence in applying this same approach for development, for two reasons: 1. I didn't necessarily know how to break this down into Micro-tasks for a new project (although, I can put more thought into how to do this) 2. With developers, I have to give them the key to the house so they can do their work. With content writers, I give them the project and they produce the results, without me having to give them access. If you could expand out on these two areas, that would be really helpful! Thank you.
I saw that you're doing consultations and I booked a call for next week, thank you!
It's always a good idea to do this even if you're not working with an outside developer :)
For the first couple of jobs where 80-90% of the developers fail to pass I actually create a repo with a few demo tasks on code which is not part of my project.
Looking forward to it!