How to Find Developers for Your Startup — Program-Ace
Tags: Development, Startup

Running a startup is similar to caring for a tree that has just been planted. As you care for it, there is visible growth and improvement, yet there are also countless hazards that can cause it harm. Like trees, the first years of a startup are the most fraught with danger and risk, so great thought should be put into caring for the business and addressing its needs. These needs that startups experience range from the obvious things like securing financing and formulating a business strategy, to less obvious yet nonetheless important ones like find a team for startup and renting a workspace.

Why is Finding a Programmer for Your Startup an Important Choice?

Unless your business is completely off-the-grid and you have no online presence, you will need developers at some point, and the quality of work they do might just determine the future of your startup. Based on the startup and what it does, developers can be needed for designing the business website, internal apps and software, and sometimes even the core product.

Finding app developer for a startup, you can easily produce high-quality apps, products, and services, while a poorly-selected one can cause even the most strategically-brilliant venture to fail. We have seen the impacts of such recruitment choices firsthand, and decided to compile some helpful tips and strategies for finding the perfect developers who can deliver results and push your startup towards a new level of success and recognition.

What is the Best Place for Hiring Software Developers for Startup?

Software programmers, developers, and engineers are not a monolithic or uniform group of people, so you will not find their contacts and information all in one place. Sure, nearly everyone uses social media nowadays, but not everyone showcases their professional information and status there. Thus, it is best to use a multi-pronged approach in your search, targeting various mediums at once. The places where you look will also be a bit different depending on what you’re looking for — local developers, remote developers, or a development partner with many available experts.

Local developers

One of the best places to start is your contact book and friends. Perhaps you already know someone looking for work in this field or your friends/colleagues can recommend such a person. If you reach out to these people and set up meetings, you will go into the meeting knowing more about the person and their merits.

Another common-sense choice is job search websites like Indeed and Glassdoor. They are specifically tailored to people looking for work and those offering it, so they often provide the most relevant and fastest results in a search. It should also be mentioned that you can meet potential candidates in person by visiting local events, coworking spaces, and even college campuses.

Remote developers

Remote developers are generally much easier to find, as you can pull from a talent pool around the world and there are just more to choose from. Though some candidates of this type check postings in job search sites, they can be found on freelancer websites much more often. Some of the best sites of this type include Upwork, Craigslist and Toptal.

LinkedIn is another excellent service (social network) when you are wondering how to find a programmer for your startup. Its greatest strength comes from the functionality of connecting people. You can connect with your friends and colleagues, and this makes your profile visible to their connections and vice versa. It also has excellent features for professional recruiters and a messaging system that allows conversations to start very quickly.

Finally, you can visit international conferences, expos, and hackathons to meet some of the most talented and promising specialists working in the industry. If you talk to enough people, chances are that you will come across someone looking for this exact type of work or who knows a suitable candidate.

Development partners

Development partners are companies and agencies with in-house staff available to assist other businesses with their projects, whether it is through remote work or relocation. In most cases, these services are provided in the form of dedicated teams and team extension. So where can you find a reliable partner?

One approach is to ask around and find companies that your friends and acquaintances have worked with before and have good things to say about. You can also use a search engine and look based on some keywords, but the results will not necessarily show the best partners, rather those who have optimized their website well.

Thus, one safe way to get a list of solid choices is to look at ratings. Several organizations around the world are dedicated to collecting client feedback and learning about companies that provide staff for these purposes. One of the best such organizations is IAOP, which maintains a database of thousands of outsourcing companies and publishes annual awards featuring the finest ones. Clutch is another reliable organization that features profiles of companies in various industries, so you can look at the top contenders in categories like web development, mobile apps, eCommerce, etc.

Things to Consider When You Need to Find a Team for a Startup

One of the main things you consider before hiring someone is how much they will charge, but this is hardly the only thing you should pay attention to. A strategic and wise decision should be based on multiple factors and considerations:

1. Skills and qualifications

Like salary, this is an obvious yet essential consideration during recruitment. You should pay close attention to candidates’ resumes and get all the information available about what kind of work they have done, for how long, and which achievements (completing courses, business results) they have picked up along the way.

2. Location

If you are looking for a local developer, you should certainly ask candidates about where they live, as a long commute might cause them to show up late for work on some days, and sometimes, people will even need to relocate from another city. If this is a remote position, you should consider the general level of IT literacy in their country or city, as well as their fluency in your language.

3. Past work

Even the most impressive resume can collapse when its claims are put to the test, so you can ask people to provide examples of their work (e.g. code snippets, apps developed, publications) to get an understanding of their capabilities. Some people have a natural tendency to overemphasize their strengths, and such simple tests reveal the truth.

4. Personal qualities

Regardless of the type of communication you have with a client, having a meeting (in person or by video call) is essential to learn about a person beyond their professional qualifications. This includes how well they can communicate, their attitude towards authority figures and managers, their literacy and manners. Even the most skilled expert can turn a project into a nightmare if you cannot find a polite and productive way to communicate.

5. Feedback

If you have the option, look for feedback about the person from their past colleagues and partners. For example, LinkedIn profiles have a Recommendations section where anyone connected to the specialist can comment on their past work together. If no feedback is easily accessible, you can also go the extra mile and ask for recommendations or contact their previous employer directly.

Things to Consider Before You Find a Programmer Partner

While we have covered what to look for in a specialist, companies are trickier. As you are usually hiring a group of developers from such a provider, the costs and risks are greater. To make the choice easier for you, we have compiled a list of things to look for in your future partner:

1. Reputation

Companies often claim to have a sterling and spotless reputation with no clients left unsatisfied in the past, but this is not always the truth. To demonstrate trustworthiness, they present feedback from past customers that shows them in a glowing light. This feedback is usually authentic and worth reading, but to get a fair and unbiased assessment of the company’s reputation, we suggest checking the company’s reviews on external sites, such as Clutch.

2. Size of the company

The size of a company is usually a good indicator of whether it can quickly allocate developers for your project. For example, a company with 10–20 employees will often have just 1–2 instantly available, with others already working on other projects. In contrast, companies with 100+ employees are usually able to gather whole development teams with dozens of specialists in a very short time.

3. Portfolio

If you want to know whether a provider can deliver a project of the scope you have in mind, just look whether they did so in the past. You can usually see a portfolio on the company website or contact them for more specific examples relevant to your needs. If you are satisfied with the quality of past work, there is a good chance that you will benefit from the same level of quality.

4. Staff certification

To get an understanding of the level of experience a partner will bring to the table, you can ask them about their staff qualifications and certification. This includes details like the number of junior, middle, and senior developers working, whether they have completed any additional courses and received certification, and whether they will be ready to complete a custom test of your choice.

5. Attitude

Great partnerships are built on trust and communication, so you should pay close attention to how the provider treats you, the client. Are they forthcoming in answering questions and making detailed estimates? Do they treat you with the level of care and respect that you deserve? Are they willing to accommodate changes and negotiate? You can learn all of these things and get a reading of their attitude through extended communication and discussion of your project.

Outsourcing Software Development for Startups with Program-Ace

Based on the tips we provided and your own strategy, you will likely come across dozens of great companies that are willing to provide developers for your startup. We would like to make our pitch as well and tell you a bit about what Program-Ace can offer.

Our company has been on the market for 26 years, and this has allowed us to work with all kinds of businesses — big and small, IT-based and non-technological. We have a proven track record of being a reliable B2B partner, and our work in outsourcing has been recognized by IAOP, Clutch, and other agencies. They consistently name us leaders in the field, and certainly in our region.

Our staff includes over 120 specialists, dozens of which are certified in their trade (e.g. Unity developers), and we are able to quickly organize teams and get them working on projects remotely. Because our past work often included projects for startups, we are familiar with the complex requirements the software must meet to adhere to business strategy. In fact, we have a team of business analysts available to help you in formulating or adjusting strategies should they be needed.

If you want to discuss potential collaboration between our companies, just let us know. We are always happy to meet new people and form strong bonds with businesses around the world.