I get this question often. Startups need great teams. Founders who don't know coding find it a bit difficult to interview and hire great developers. What tips would you offer to such founders who want to hire good developers?
If I had to hire a progammer for a job, the first things I would ask any applier are:
You do not actually have to be a programmer in order to ask the questions above. You do not have to look at the code. But you should try to see if the applicant is nervous about certain points or if the community responses are rather bad.
Additionally, the employer has to check all the things they would ask for any other position. They have to check if the person can integrate into the existing team, if they are diligent, why they want to have that job position, why they want to join the company, what they do in their free time (are they social or might they show problems later on?),...
Such a startup must have a senior developer to start with. Without one, it will fail. Finding the first one is hard if you have no experience and no way to judge the skill of a programmer. But a startup without a first senior is doomed to fail. I do not think it can even start. That first person will impact all that will follow. His thinking and feedback will be used in hiring the next members of the team.
If there is no such person in the company, one should be hired as soon as possible, but the task to find one should be outsourced. Use a company that can evaluate the skill of that first person you get. Once you have a pool of candidates, talk to them and see if you can find someone you can resonate with at human level. Technical skills are important, but soft skills matter just as much. If you are good with people, by talking with the candidates, you can evaluate their level of enthusiasm, reasons for doing a job, life goals, personal intelligence, emotional intelligence. All those things are important. A great programmer that can't communicate, has a hard time in social circumstances, will be of no use as a first dev you hire. Such hackers are great for some projects, but if you want to build a team, you need something else. Something that is more like a CTO, but is still a programmer. Or maybe you just need a CTO in the first place...
Another thing is that in my opinion human qualities are a lot more important than skills, because anyone motivated, will learn a skill it needs. Think hard about what kind of team you want to have and go from there.
But saying that, don't hire nice people that are incompetents. Use external help to filter the candidates BEFORE you try to filter inside based on your company values. Because there are great people out there that are also very good at what they do. Just do not be the one to judge their competency if you have no idea about that field. It will backfire.
There are some signs that help to differentiate between the professional developers and amateurs. In fact, being a good coder doesn't necessary mean being a great developer for a startup, especially if founders of a startup are not tech savvy people. The development camp should also have good communication skills and understand the business side of the project. The capability of developers to perform the technical part of development can be determined from reviewing their past projects. The rest, can be evaluated by asking the developers how the development process is generally organized, how their activities can be tracked and what responsibilities they can handle. While discussing all these, the project owner will also see if everything is fine with the communication and mutual understanding. Another good way is to ask for references and ask founders of some previously developed projects about their experience with this development team.
There are online resources to help you in interviewing coders but they're probably not going to help you find the best people for your team/product.
A founder better know at least someone they trust who codes for getting feedback on their idea. No product just gets made without critical input from engineers and tech. If your startup didn't take this into consideration you're more than likely going to have bigger problems than hiring quality coders.
Whoever that trust board is that helps in forming the company and the ideas behind the venture should also be used to hire your first tech lead. This person should be on top of their game and know how to own the tech side of the project, find and hire other coders, and make informed decisions about the vector of the project that they can explain to the stakeholders. But the beginning hire is done by someone who can vet and be trusted.
Lastly, hire on a short-term contract basis at first so you're not committed long term if it isn't a good fit.
Well i think the most important is to know the task of the programmer, do you want a web developer? or a desk developer? even a developer to make some bash/scripting in the server? first is so important to know the target and the type of the programmer.
Second is very important to know about the programmer, the motivations, aspirations, what want from working in a company and what are their values.
And i think another important thing to know is the skills they have, is a good programmer? have any good skills in some of the programming?
You have a lot of docummentation in the web about hiring programmer, but i think it's important to know something about programming or have any employee in the company that know about progrraming.
Marco Alka
Software Engineer, Technical Consultant & Mentor
Vijay Thirugnanam
Inference Service @ Cerebras
There are some consultancies in India who hire an independent consultant to do the hiring. One such company called Gigatude approached me for hiring. They offered me Rs. 500 (~ $8) for taking one interview. The interview should last roughly 30 minutes. I did some digging and found that there is indeed a market for experts taking interviews. The going rate for taking one interview is roughly Rs. 5000 (~ $80). It is a good approach to take. I will also appreciate if somebody starts a company to formalise this arrangement.