How to Find Mobile Developers for Your Startup

Everyone needs an app. Unlike the past few decades, now almost every business needs a personal piece of software to even get a chance at competition. Along with that, getting to people via their mobile devices is increasingly becoming crucial to success. Thus, companies are starving for programming talent. Among other concerns, this is also relevant for your startup. Unless you’ve decided to fully outsource your piece of software, in this article we will break down the key aspects of how to hire a mobile app developer for your startup and avoid the common pitfalls along the way.

Define Your Future App

If you have validated your app idea and decided to move ahead with its development, it’s time to dig deeper into the technical specifications. At this point, you’ll want to get into as much detail as you can. Here are some of the deciding factors to consider with your future app:

1. The platforms. Are you doing hybrid, cross-platform or only 1 platform? Or you are starting with building the MVP first?
2. Overall size. The amount of work that needs to go into development and design.
3. Additional technical specifications and API integrations the developer should be aware of.
4. Design specs. Fonts, colors, images, and logos.
5. Development milestones and timeframe.

*If you’re not certain which platforms would be better for you, here is a short rundown for different frameworks to help you answer this question:

Courtesy of Upwork Global Inc.

Native: Based on this decision the budget will vary. Making a native, 1 platform app for only Android, Windows or iOS will cut you off from reaching out to other user bases. On the other hand, making multiple native apps for all the platforms will blow up the costs.

Cross-platform: Aside from the aforementioned hybrid and cross-platform, various businesses also go for the web. All of them are more easily updated. However, there will always be a certain need to optimize for each platform despite of all claims to full compatibility. Plus, they will run a bit slower.

Another thing with hybrid options is that many run on older technologies. These are JavaScript, CSS, HTML. There are dozens of potential mobile app developers for hire who will be up to the task. You’ll get to choose from among less expensive professionals as they won’t need to use the most cutting edge languages.

With all the above outlined, you may now start screening for potential candidates to build your development team. Here are the main guidelines:

Don’t Rush It

In a startup world, time constraints can trap you into going for quantity over quality. You better believe that you need only a good programmer. Don’t settle for anything less. Aside from putting forth average practices, bad developers will go against having anyone that looks better than them on the team.

Don’t Let a Single Person Take Charge

This might be a rockstar coder with a whole bag of professional accolades and yet there are specific signs you have to watch out for. With experience, developers start clinging to the old ways they’re used to do things. On a job interview, one of these highly seasoned programmers might offer writing the code in a language different to that you had in mind. They’ll say they can do it both faster and better, hence the development time and overall project costs. As a business owner, you might feel tempted to fall for it but you should consider this a threat.

Of course, you’re lucky if your needs and their methods align perfectly but otherwise, the senior programmer can suppress innovation in the development process coming from others. In this case, you are trading off communication.

Look for Collaboration

The world of tech is always evolving. It goes without saying that you want to stay in touch with the newest solutions out there. Which is why you should look for the younger and worse off kind of mobile app developers. The ones that are still above average but make for a great fit when working together. The perfect candidates should have diverse experiences that will not narrow them down into repeating their old practices.

Let Your Developers Identify with Your Startup

In the trenches of the startup world, your crew will fully experience the turmoil of rapidly building a business. The roller-coaster of wins and losses shared among members is a potent mixture that will help people connect with each other. This connection is what your employees are out for.

Programmers are often active in online communities and work on collaborative projects. To find a developer for your startup among such individuals will prove most valuable. Make them an integral part of your startup. A big advantage that helps to find developers for startups is inviting them as co-founders.

Get your candidates up to speed with the changing state of your project. Establish a positive culture within your company by being attentive to your workers’ needs and responding with flexible solutions. This will be appealing to your future team members and help them bond with your company.

See How Well They Code

Ask them to show how they work. A very telling way to check the programming skills is treating your candidate to a little test.

You may start by requesting the best piece of code the candidate has written to date. This will highlight the less skilled and inexperienced.

For the second round, ask them to write a piece of code in a limited time window. This will make sure your candidate’s work is legit and not written by anyone else.

With the above, you get some perspective on their use of the best coding practices as well as the level of general understanding.

These are some of the most valuable takeaways we’ve got from working on our projects over the past years. We hope they’ll help you make all the right decisions in course of building your startup and drive your future business to success. Good luck!

Slava Vaniukov, Co-Founder and Ceo at a href=http://softermii.com/Softermii software development company, has over 9-years of experience in the web and mobile development industry.