How to hire developers for your startup

You have a great problem-solving idea, but you are not a developer. Here’s How to hire developers for your startup.

Building a business in this current age and time requires a lot of technicality, especially if you are building a product that can only be accessed digitally. You will need a developer to help you write codes, fix bugs, and manage every internet-ish aspect of your business, but how do you find one, and why do you even need one?

4 Things to do Before Hiring a Developer for your Startup

• Understand your Idea

Before thinking of building and hiring a developer to help you bring your idea to life, understand the idea thoroughly and have a map of how the idea works at hand.

This also involves doing research, looking at how other similar products to what you are building works, understanding the market and ensuring you have every necessary detail to whether or not the idea is a feasible one. 

This will help the developer you will hire work efficiently and effectively without blockers.

• Have a Project Plan

To ensure a flexible building phase, with your developer and every other team member, a project plan will help you know the different stages of building.

This should include the needs, the scope of work, work ethics, milestones, and timelines. With this, you can track your progress, identify faults and blockers easily, and know how fast or slow your building phase is.

Ensure you are realistic about it and have a clear plan of what, how, and when.

• Get a Budget

Whether you are bootstrapping, raising funds, or having enough funds to build the first phase of your startup, a budget is essential.

You should be able to identify and document the amount needed for each phase of your startup, as well as development costs, which include employee salaries, tools, design, marketing, and many more.

• Legal Documentation

As unimportant as this may sound, having legal documentation of every aspect of your idea, employees, and product is very important.  These documents include Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA), Founders Agreements, Intellectual Property Assignment Agreements, Terms of Service, Employer Contracts, Privacy Policies, Licenses and Permits, and many more.

These documents will help you prepare for any legal charges you might encounter. Another alternative is getting a lawyer for your startup; you can find the best online legal services for startups in 2024 here.

3 Tips for Hiring a Developer

Before selecting a developer to work with you, there are various things you need to consider regarding the skills and specialties of the developer.

• Necessary Stack or Specialty

It’s essential to recognize that every product has its unique requirements, and every developer has their area of expertise. When seeking to hire a developer, it’s crucial to consider the specifics of your project and ensure that the skills of the developer you bring on board match those requirements.

For example, if your project involves artificial intelligence, it’s advisable to start by seeking out experienced Machine Learning Engineers. Similarly, different types of development require knowledge of different programming languages, so it’s essential to consider which languages are best suited to your particular project. By considering these factors, you can ensure that you hire a developer who is well-equipped to deliver the results you need.

If you are not a technical person, you can’t figure out the type of programming language, the field, and everything else. A way to go around it is by hiring a technical co-founder.

• Experience

Another major thing to look for in a developer while trying to build a successful startup is years of developer experience.

You would want to check their developer background, experience, companies they’ve recently worked with, and more. Another way to verify their past experience and expertise is by reaching out to their previous employers and asking for their performance; you could also verify the developer’s expertise by reviewing his/her portfolio and looking at the types of projects he/she has worked on previously.

This is important, and you would not want a developer with little or no experience building the foundation of a product that you aim to cater to as a solution to a large number of people. 

• Preferable Country

This can be considered due to availability, pricing, time zone, and work setting. Suppose you would like to work on your startup with developers who are physically present. In that case, it’d be advisable to hire developers from your region or your country, as commuting down to work will be easier for them.

If you’d prefer a remote work setting, hiring developers outside your country can also be preferable; it all depends on what you want and where the developer you are hiring is from. For hiring in some countries, you can face problems like language barriers, high pricing, timezone concerns, and many more.

You have to weigh each option and pick a preferable one.

5 Best Websites to Hire Developers for Your Startup

• Github

With over 73+ million developers, GitHub is a place to get free access to developers and reach out to them. You could easily view their profiles, check what they are working on, and even connect with them.

To get started with hiring a developer from Github for your startup,

• Create an account on github.com
• Search for what you want: front-end developers or data engineers. Backend developers and more.

The search result will give you access to a pool of developers related to your search term, and you can view each one and pick the developer you would love to work with.

• WellFound

Formerly known as AngelList, WellFound is a developer’s marketplace, especially for startup founders. With over 100,00+ developers, you can easily find developers with the specific specialty you seek. 

You can easily hire a developer by creating an account and filling out a form on it’s recruit page. WellFound works on a Freemium model, a free job posting, and a premium one for $250 per month. 

• Upwork

Arguably the most popular and best freelancing marketplace, Upwork provides a pool of talents, including developers. 

You can post a job on the platform and different developers interested in building with you will be prompted to submit proposals which you will have access to and then be able to filter and select the best candidate.

Another way to do this is by using the search feature to find the developers you’d love to work with manually, this is efficient and faster than the first option. 

• Toptal

With access to various developers in different fields and specialties, Toptal is one of the best bets for you when trying to hire developers to build your startup.

Toptal screens and vets developers before they get registered, allowing you to find developers with the best expertise and saving you from the stress of screening these developers yourself.

The vetting allows Toptal to check for the education, attitude, values, language, and technical skills of the developer. 

• Bloomin

Bloomin is an agency marketplace that provides different services to startups. Hiring a developer for building on Bloomin is easy, you could easily visit Bloomin’s website and submit a form on the Contact Us page.

 This submits all your requests to them and allows them to get back to you within 24 hours, and they can easily set up a call in order to help you better understand what you are trying to build and how you plan to approach it. 

Bloomin also provides services that can help you scale your startup after building by offering skills like marketing and branding.

With these five websites, you can easily find a developer to work with and know the next of building your startup.