29.10.2021 
Introduction
The start of every startup is beginning from a reliable team hiring. To be competitive on the market it is very important to hire professionals that know their stuff. The number of young businesses is rising year by year so as an employer, you will face competition in hiring programmers. Due to the data from Statista in March 2020, there were 804,398 businesses that were less than 1 year old.
To make a perfect product your team should have excellent tech and problem-solving skills, an understanding of the market trends, and a lot of enthusiasm for task performing. We described useful tips on how to find matching talents for your startup.
7 Tips of How to Hire a Programmer for a Startup
Tip 1. Choose the best way of hiring
In the modern world, there are no frames for hire. All borders are opened and you have a wide pool of solutions. For example, you can hire programmers for a startup via your internal department, use the recruitment agency, freelance platform, or outstaffing companies’ services.
Let’s overview each of these options a bit detailed with their pros and cons.
Hire a programmer on one’s own.
This option assumes that you have time for such operating tasks and at least one recruiter who will be responsible for all stages of hiring: vacancy posting, all communication, onboarding, etc. Also, in the context of hiring programmers for startups, you will need to set aside the time of a technical person to check test tasks and conduct the first stages of the interview. This way of programmers hiring is ok if you do not have urgent needs and have already created processes. Otherwise, you can waste a lot of time and money to find 1 fitting employee.
Hire programmers via freelancers platform
The freelancers’ platforms are a very popular option to find remote programmers. In most cases, freelancers are easier to find and cheaper. On the other hand, the quality of their skills also can be lower. If we are talking about creating a programming team, freelancers aren’t a great option. First of all, it will be hard to manage such a team and create quality communication between them. Also, remember that there can be some troubles with NDA. So use freelancers as an additional option if you need to close urgent tasks.
The recruitment agency
Is a good option if you are looking for a fast hiring startup programmer. Actually, the recruitment agency can easily prepare for you the list of candidates.
The few disadvantages of such collaboration are – high price, in most cases you pay some commission for each hired candidate, and lack of communication. Recruitment agencies are looking for technical matching candidates and do not go deeper – culture fit, career goals of the candidate, and so on.
The outstaffing companies or dedicated teams provider
One of the most popular options nowadays is to hire programmers via such a company. The main advantages of collaboration with dedicated team providers are:
- the cost-reducing on taxes and fees
- wide candidate poll worldwide
- experience with team creating
- support with onboarding and replacement of the candidates
- fixed-price
- NDA and guarantees
Also, a bigger part of companies has trial periods that can make the process of finding the ideal candidate.
Tip 2. Look at the talent at the right location
It’s not a secret to anybody that the rates for programmers depend on locations. For example, due to Payscale, the average software programmer’s salary in the USA is $62K per year, at the same time the average salary in Ukraine will be around $30K. So if it’s possible to use a remote team for a project you should use this chance because it can help to save budget or perhaps spend more man-hours for the better result.
Tip 3. Prepare the list of skills for your perfect candidate
No matter which way you will choose, you need a list of requirements for the future candidate. If you have no idea or you are a non-technical person you may find someone to support you. An example of the CaaS (CTO-as-a-Service) solutions cover similar cases.
At this list, you can collect not only technical requirements but soft skills you are expected to see in the person for this position. Especially if we are talking about some leading positions or which require a lot of responsibility.
Tip 4. Make sure that the candidate is fitted due to the culture
It is very important to point out. Every company has its own culture, values, etc. Finding programmers for a startup that fits within your organization’s values, culture, and personality is a task, to say the least.
What are your company’s values? What is the most important at your job? Ask the right questions, an example:
- Imagine your perfect work process
- What characteristics do you like or dislike at your potential boss
- Describe a work environment in which you’d be unhappy
- etc…
Such simple questions will help you to understand if this person will fit your culture. This will prevent burnout, miscommunications, and ruined expectations.
Tip 5. Make sure that the project’s and candidates’ goals are correlating
The point is similar to the previous. There are white, grey and black niches. Not all of the employees are interested in working in some of them. Someone may be against working with tobacco or alcohol corporations. If the candidate has a bias towards your type of business, the best option is not to hire him.
Also, there are some expectations about vertical and horizontal growth. Check what ambitions your candidate has and compare them with what you can give him. The similarity at this level will help build long-term relationships.
Tip 6. Check the previous experience
This is gorgeous if your candidate is already experienced in the same industry. In this case, the chance of his understanding the underwater rocks is increasing. The onboarding into the new project will be faster and this can save you time and budget.
Also, it is a good experience to ask about some references from the previous job.
Tip 7. Ask to solve the real-time problem
This question tests their problem-solving ability. As an employer, you want to hire people that get things done and when faced with a problem actively solve it. A good answer should show that the applicant took the initiative, did not act thoughtlessly, and was willing to ask questions and work as a team.
The questions can be different: What steps do you take before making a decision? Or How will you solve a problem like this?
How the IT Resourcing Companies Can Help to Find a Programmer for a startup?
The dedicated programmer’s team providers have a pool of advantages in the context of team creating:
- You can prepare only the list of requirements for the candidate and wait for shortlisting, instead of the full recruitment process
- Fast delivery. IT-staffing companies have a pool of available candidates so the perfect candidate will be found in a few days.
- High-quality. The companies are selecting candidates, before the next steps.
- Guarantees. You are signing the contract and NDA with the company which provides dedicated team services.
- No operating expenses. You shouldn’t pay additional taxes, office rent, bonuses, etc . It is not necessary to hire HR or recruiters for your team.
- You are fully managing your team.
Why is Talmatic the best option for hiring programmers for startups?
Talmatic is a concierge-type service for dedicated programmers hiring. We are providing access to a unique vetted pool of talents. We are not working with freelancers and collaborate only with software companies so usually our candidates are not available for hire in another way.
As a services provider, we guarantee that you will directly manage your dedicated team. Also, Talmatic offers a risk-free trial period during the first week, which means that you can discontinue any further work with the programmer with 1 day’s notice.
Moreover, all over talents are located in Eastern Europe – Ukraine and Belarus. So you can count on the cost that in Western Europe and high-quality of provided programmers.
Sum up
Finding suitable programmers or teams for startups is not an easy task. The best way to do this fast, quality, and efficiently is to take some support from the outside.
If you have any questions about our processes, prices, tech stack – feel free to contact us! Our team will give you more information and provide answers to all your questions.
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George Fironov
Co-founder & CEO
Our mission
Talmatic is a concierge type service for hiring dedicated developers. Great developers are in huge demand, but in-house hires are expensive and freelancers aren’t always suitable for long term work. We, at Talmatic, providing access to a unique vetted pool of tech talent available for contract hire.
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Southknock, New Ross,
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+353 51 445 639