Though being quite popular, web development sphere still remains a hard nut to crack. This is not surprising since it requires lots of industry-specific knowledge and tons of hands-on expertise. These factors make the necessity of hiring a web developer very reasoned. However, the following question arises – how to find and how to hire a good web developer, that will be really helpful for you? Let’s figure it out together!
Which One Developer Do You Need?
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Frontend, Backend, Fullstack
Firstly, you need to define what part of your project the developer will work on. Depending on the role in the software project, developers are divided into three types: frontend ones – they work on the visible elements of a website; backend – create and maintain “under the hood” databases and infrastructure; and full-stack developers who do both types of work.
Expertise
It may happen that you need to solve a particular problem or to get a specific service, for example, troubleshooting a non-working app, add custom functionality, or update the website platform. That’s why searching for a developer, pay attention to their expertise. Has this developer already solved problems like yours? Thus, you can find a suitable candidate for what you need: performance optimization, various integration, modules development, and so on.
Freelancer or Agency Contractor
The debates around freelancers and agencies are hot: some people say that freelancers are too precarious, while others approve that there’s no need in turning to digital agencies. To our mind, hiring a single freelance developer is probably not the best thing you can do for your project. Lack of personal interactions, management issues, possible vanishing of the developer – all these problems you’ll carry on your shoulders.
After you’ve determined what developer you need, it’s time to create a solid plan for yourself and the future developer.
Define Your Requirements
It may look like a basic Statement of Work (SOW) that contains all activities, constraints, your needs, that is, everything related to your project and future cooperation. Why is this stage considered to be a crucial brick for your e-commerce business? This simple step will help you avoid misunderstandings and miscommunications while hiring a web development company as well as an individual developer. Here are some important factors to think about:
- Objectives – set up clear and measurable goals you need to achieve. It can be represented as a list of the functionality need to be implemented, list of necessary integrations, specific support services, and so on.
- Project summary – this section should include an initial project overview. Put here all the ideas you have to date about your future project: references to the websites you like, style you prefer to use for development, terms of agreement, and so on.
- Budget – strive to be realistic and adequate. Review the job-boards, find job-posts similar to yours one, and check their budgets. Remember that hiring a specialist can’t be cheap, so don’t fall for low price strategies.
- Deadlines – determine critical date for you and reflect it in the outline. The issue to consider is that many developers work at their own pace, and it’s necessary to specify the rules of the game from the very beginning.
- Communication – specify here preferred ways and time frame for the communication.
- Further support – think thoroughly if your project needs any further support, since this will simplify your scheduling a lot!
- Payments schedule – determine here payment frequency and payment day to depict the most comfortable payment schedule that works for you.
The only recommendation for your is to be clear, brief, honest and straightforward creating the outline. Read the final result a couple of times in order to ensure that you’ve succeeded.
Where to Find a Web Developer
Once you’ve finished with defining your project’s details, you are ready to proceed with directly searching the specialist. So, where to find freelance web developers or a company? Well, the sources are numerous, and combining them wisely you’ll be able to find an appropriate person:
- Personal Network – The power of word of mouth is incredibly strong, so don’t hesitate to ask your colleagues and partners you can trust whether they have someone in mind.
- Freelance Websites – You can also profit from turning to freelance websites – there you successfully hire web development company as well as a single developer! The most popular are Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal. These resources have got an impressive database, convenient tools, and filters to find the right candidate. All you need to do is to post your job there and wait for a while. Be sure that you’ll soon get at least 20 feedbacks from the candidates!
- Social Networks – That’s absolutely impossible to overlook the power of social networks in our lives. Which is why, addressing to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Instagram can work for your favor. Write an attractive job post announcing that you’re looking for a web specialist, use hashtags such as #frontend, #backend, #Magento, #webdeveloper and so on.
- Specialized communities – Technology-oriented communities, such as Magento Partner Community, Shopify Partners, and Stack Overflow casually unite the best individuals and agencies of the particular technology around the world. Such communities have stringent requirements to the applicants, and thus you can be any community member has proved their proficiency.
Skills Verification
Once you’ve posted the project’s outline and received a lot of applications, the question arises: how to make the right choice and hire a web developer that is qualified? In order to spot high-quality web-developer, you need to evaluate their technical skills. They are commonly divided into two groups – hard and soft ones.
Hard Skills
Hard skills are competencies that can be measured in any way. Hard skills set strongly depends on the stack of the specialist and may vary dramatically depending on the developer’s specialty.
As for the verification issue – so far the most popular way to check hard skills is to ask a developer to pass a test assignment or an interview. Respect your applicant and make sure that the test assignment takes under three hours to complete. Otherwise, it should be paid.
However, hard skills verification may be tough if you’re not a tech-savvy person. What should you do in a case like this and how to hire professional web developers then? First of all – keep calm! You can search for a nearby development specialist through LinkedIn and engage them as a consultant. Don’t hesitate to ask them for feedback about your candidates.
Soft Skills
Soft skills define how comfortable the interaction is with a particular specialist. The most popular ones are discipline, creativity, multitasking, and problem-solving skills. With this basic set of skills, the candidate is considered to be the right contribution to your team. In addition to the above-mentioned characteristics, it will be a bonus if the developer will be a team player, flexible and helpful, and, of course, have good communication skills.
So, how to hire a web developer with decent soft skills? Well, that’s not a challenge at all – you can check some of them while interviewing. You can also ask the applicant for the recommendations from the previous employer.
With interview and test assignments results you are ready to make a decision about a job offer to a particular applicant. Plus, you can offer an applicant to pass a trial period which may last between two weeks and 90 days in order to ensure you’ve made the right choice.
That’s a daunting task – to hire a web programmer, especially the right one. Nevertheless, your efforts will be rewarded handsomely by the trustworthy person which can be your reliable partner! Hope, you’ve got a clear impression about the hiring process!