WhatsAppHow to hire software developers: choose the right model first
| Model | Pros | Cons | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-house employees | Long-term commitment, culture, knowledge retention | Slow and costly to hire; hard to scale down | Core, long-term product teams |
| Freelancers | Flexible, quick for small tasks | Availability, continuity and quality vary | Short, well-defined tasks |
| Development agency | Complete team and delivery management | Less day-to-day control | Projects without an in-house team |
| Staff augmentation | Vetted engineers join your team quickly | Needs your engineering leadership | Filling skill gaps and adding capacity |
Define the role clearly
- The problems the developer will solve in the first six months
- Required versus nice-to-have skills
- Seniority level and how much autonomy is expected
- Working hours and time-zone overlap
- How success will be measured
A clear role description attracts the right candidates and makes assessment fairer.
Where to find developers
- Referrals — often the highest-quality source.
- Job boards and LinkedIn — broad reach, more screening needed.
- Developer communities — open-source, meetups and niche forums.
- Specialist partners — agencies and staff augmentation firms with pre-vetted engineers.
How to assess skills fairly
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Screening call30 min
Experience, motivation, communication and logistics.
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Practical exercise1–3 hours
A realistic task related to the job, or a review of a pull request — not puzzles unrelated to the work.
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Technical interview60 min
Discuss their solution, system design and past decisions.
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Team fit30–60 min
Meet future colleagues; assess collaboration and communication.
Pay candidates for take-home tasks longer than a couple of hours, and keep the process to two or three weeks to avoid losing good people.
Red flags
- Cannot explain decisions in their own past projects
- No questions about the product, users or team
- Dismisses testing, documentation or code review
- Vague about which parts of team projects they built
- Poor written communication for a remote role
Onboarding so developers are productive fast
- Accounts, hardware and access ready on day one
- A short architecture overview and documentation
- A buddy for the first weeks
- A small first task that ships to production in week one
- Regular check-ins during the first 90 days
Sample job description structure
Good job descriptions are specific about the work and honest about the environment. A structure that works well:
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About the product
Two or three sentences on what you build, for whom, and why it matters.
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What you will work on
Concrete projects for the first six months, not a list of buzzwords.
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What we need
Four to six genuine requirements: languages, experience level, key skills.
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Nice to have
Skills that help but are not essential, clearly labelled as optional.
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How we work
Team size, process, tools, remote or hybrid, working hours and overlap.
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Hiring process
Each stage, how long it takes and who candidates will meet.
Long lists of “required” technologies discourage strong candidates who meet most of them and attract those who simply claim all of them.
A practical exercise that predicts performance
The best assessments resemble the real job. For a back-end developer, give a small repository with an existing API and ask the candidate to add a feature, write tests and explain any trade-offs in a short note. For a front-end developer, ask them to build a small screen from a design, including loading and error states. For senior roles, ask them to review a pull request with deliberate issues — it reveals judgement, communication and attention to detail in an hour.
Use a written scoring rubric so every candidate is judged on the same criteria:
| Criterion | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| Correctness | Works as specified, handles edge cases |
| Code quality | Readable, sensibly structured, consistent |
| Testing | Meaningful tests for important behaviour |
| Communication | Clear explanation of decisions and trade-offs |
| Pragmatism | Solves the problem without over-engineering |
Seniority levels explained
| Level | Typical experience | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Junior | 0–2 years | Needs guidance and review; delivers well-defined tasks |
| Mid-level | 2–5 years | Owns features end to end with occasional support |
| Senior | 5+ years | Designs solutions, reviews others’ work, handles ambiguity |
| Lead / staff | 8+ years | Shapes architecture, mentors, aligns technical and business goals |
Years are a rough guide; demonstrated skills matter more than time served.
Your first 90 days with a new developer
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Days 1–7
Environment set up, codebase tour, first small change shipped to production.
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Days 8–30
Takes on regular tickets with a buddy; learns the domain and the deployment process.
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Days 31–60
Owns a small feature from design to release; participates in code review.
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Days 61–90
Works independently on planned work; a structured review of progress and fit.
If you need developers faster than this process allows, staff augmentation or a dedicated team can fill the gap while you hire.
Writing a job ad that attracts strong engineers
Good engineers read job ads like specifications. Vague ads full of buzzwords attract vague candidates. Strong ads are specific about the work.
- Describe the product and the problem it solves in plain language
- List the real tech stack, not every technology the company has ever touched
- Explain what the person will build in their first months
- State the hiring process and how long it takes
- Include working hours, location or time-zone expectations and pay range where you can
- Say who they will work with and report to
Interview scorecard template
Agree what you are looking for before interviews, then score each candidate against the same criteria. It reduces bias and makes decisions faster.
| Criterion | What “strong” looks like | Score 1–4 |
|---|---|---|
| Technical fundamentals | Clear, correct reasoning about code, data and design | |
| Problem solving | Breaks problems down, considers trade-offs, tests assumptions | |
| Code quality | Readable code, sensible tests, handles edge cases | |
| Communication | Explains decisions clearly to technical and non-technical people | |
| Ownership | Examples of seeing work through and flagging risks early | |
| Collaboration | Gives and takes feedback well, helps others |
Have each interviewer score independently before discussing.
Hiring timeline: what to expect
| Stage | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| Define role and write ad | 1 week |
| Sourcing and applications | 2–4 weeks |
| Screening and interviews | 2–3 weeks |
| Offer and acceptance | 1 week |
| Notice period | Varies — often several weeks for employed candidates |
Rules of thumb for in-house hiring; staff augmentation is usually much faster.
If you cannot wait that long, staff augmentation or a dedicated team can provide capacity while you hire permanently.
Questions candidates will ask you
The best candidates interview you too. Have good answers ready:
- How do you decide what to build, and who decides?
- How is code reviewed, tested and deployed?
- What does on-call or production support look like?
- How is technical debt handled?
- How do engineers grow here, and what does promotion look like?
- What would success look like in this role after six months?
Clear, honest answers attract people who will thrive in your environment and put off those who would not, which saves everyone time.
Remote hiring considerations
- Time-zone overlap — agree a daily window of shared hours for meetings and quick questions.
- Written communication — assess it explicitly, since much remote work happens in writing.
- Employment and contracts — hiring across borders needs the right contract structure; take local legal advice or use an employer-of-record or partner.
- Security — company-managed accounts, MFA and least-privilege access from day one.
- Equipment — decide who provides hardware and how it is secured.
Retaining good developers
Hiring is expensive, so keeping good engineers matters as much as finding them. The basics that keep developers engaged are not complicated:
- Meaningful work with clear goals
- Time to fix technical debt, not just ship features
- Modern tools and a fast development environment
- Regular feedback and a visible path to grow
- Fair, transparent pay reviewed regularly
- Protection from constant interruptions and unclear priorities
Contractor, employee or partner: legal and practical notes
| Arrangement | Practical considerations |
|---|---|
| Employee | Payroll, benefits, equipment, local employment law, notice periods |
| Independent contractor | Clear statement of work; check local rules on worker classification |
| Agency or augmentation partner | Master services agreement, IP assignment, confidentiality, replacement guarantees |
Whatever the arrangement, make sure contracts clearly assign intellectual property to your company and include confidentiality terms. Take legal advice for your jurisdiction; rules on contractor classification and IP differ between countries and states.
Scenario: hiring the first engineer at a non-technical company
A 40-person services firm wants to bring its customer portal in-house. Nobody on staff can assess code. The risk is hiring someone who interviews well but cannot design, build and run a production system alone.
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Get outside technical help
Engage a trusted adviser or partner to write the role, review candidates’ work and run the technical interview.
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Hire senior, not junior
A first engineer works without mentors, so they need experience designing systems, deploying and handling incidents.
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Test with real work
Use a paid exercise based on the portal: a small feature, a bug fix and a short written plan.
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Plan for support
One engineer cannot cover every hour or every skill. Pair them with a partner for reviews, security and holiday cover.
Done this way, the company gains in-house ownership without carrying the whole technical risk on one person.
Reference and background checks that are worth doing
References are most useful when you ask specific questions rather than “would you recommend them?”. Speak to someone who worked with the candidate day to day, ideally a manager and a peer.
- What did they own, and how did it turn out?
- How did they handle disagreement or a production incident?
- How was their written communication and estimation?
- What would they need from a manager to do their best work?
- Would you work with them again, and in what role?
Verify identity and right to work through your normal HR process, and confirm employment dates for recent roles. For contractors, check that their agreement assigns IP to you.
Mini FAQ: hiring questions from first-time managers
- Should we use coding puzzles? Algorithm puzzles predict puzzle skill. Realistic exercises tied to your product predict job performance far better.
- How many interview rounds are enough? Three or four focused stages are usually sufficient; long processes lose strong candidates.
- Can we hire for potential rather than experience? Yes, once you have senior engineers who can mentor. Without them, potential is hard to develop.
Making the offer
Strong candidates often have several options, so move quickly once you decide. Put the offer in writing with the role, compensation structure, working hours and overlap expectations, equipment, start date and any probation terms. Explain how performance will be reviewed and what growth looks like. Give a reasonable deadline, answer questions promptly, and keep in touch between acceptance and the first day so the new developer arrives already feeling part of the team.
What developers cost
Costs vary widely by location, seniority and model. In the US, experienced developers command high salaries plus benefits and recruiting fees; staff augmentation and agencies offer monthly rates without long-term commitments. Compare total cost — including recruitment time, management overhead and turnover — not just hourly rates. See software development costs and our hire developers options.
Browse more practical guides in Software Development Guides & Resources.