How To Choose a Reliable Developer [For Your Business]

There are around 24 million web developers in the world. That’s a big number, isn’t it?

So how do you pinpoint a professional who you can entrust with your future plans? To achieve the defined project objectives, the developer’s level of competence should be consistent with your requirements to ensure that they will deliver the expected results.

The greatest challenge includes evaluating their skills, level of expertise, and if they have a clear understanding of your target market.

Whether your plans are to employ an in-house team or you’re looking for a strong long-distance partnership with a dependable development company, the selection process boils down to several crucial steps.

1. Define your objectives

Each web developer specializes in a specific line of development work. And yes, even the best of them have certain knowledge gaps, simply because they haven’t had the opportunity to work in a particular area.

It is also crucial to determine the level of support you’ll need. Here, the question is whether you’ll need full-time support and constant updates, or you want an occasional helping hand to complete technical tasks while your focus is on other important matters. The answer may just tell you if you’ll benefit more from in-office dev support or a remote team you can contact on occasion.

To know who exactly you are looking for, it is necessary that you enlist your current project priorities. Are you building a website? What kind of a website? Do you plan on working on a specific software? Or you’re looking to build an app? And what market are you looking to target?

These and many other questions need to be answered in order for you to know which points in the candidates’ CV to look for.

2. Analyze their background

Once you have the biographies and cover letters in front of you, the time has come to:

• Look for recommendations

Surely you can ask for a developer in question to send a few recommendations along with their CV, but can you be 100 percent certain that they are true and honest? Not really, no.

Alternatively, you can ask for the contact information of their former clients or skim through their previous experience and reach out to the companies or individuals they worked for, on your own. By sending a personalized list of questions, you’ll get relevant answers which will help you make a smart choice.

We also recommend visiting Clutch, a website that gathers proven feedback from global IT companies. All the reviews are verified and unbiased, which is why they can provide valuable insight.

• Check their portfolio

In addition to the references, recommendations, and work experience, a web developer’s portfolio can tell you a lot about whether they are the right fit for the project at hand. By taking a closer look at their previous work, it is easier to evaluate if their skills and knowledge will be of service to you.

Their work may be displayed on their personal/company website or GitHub. Look for projects they’ve done in your industry, or projects that include the same elements. If possible, together with your CTO, check developers’ code samples, which are one of the most reliable indicators of the quality of their work.

3. Expand your search

Many will say that they opted for hiring an in-house development team. When asked why, they usually imply that they wanted to be sure there is a dedicated group of professionals at their disposal at all times. For others, this is something that might not fit the bill. Either costs are too great or there aren’t enough dedicated experts available locally.

In fact, a local, in-house team keeps you somewhat limited, especially if you’re working in a tight niche, targeting a narrow market. If that’s the case, chances are low that you’ll discover a local web developer who will possess all of the necessary qualifications.

This is usually the time when you start analyzing nearshoring and outsourcing business models to see if any of the two is a viable option in your case. Both have a long list of pros and cons for you to consider before finalizing your decision.

On the one hand, nearshoring comes with almost all the benefits of a local web development company: a closer relationship with the team, ease of communication, and better understanding due to cultural similarities. On the other, depending on the living standard, this approach may result in greater costs and certainly a lower pool of candidates to choose from.

Outsourcing, however, offers you a chance to be a bit more finicky. The further you expand your search, the greater the chances are that you’ll find a team or one person who possesses all the necessary qualities. Not only that - you might just stumble upon a more cost-efficient option. Still, bear in mind that the further you travel, the greater the time and the cultural differences will be, and the more challenging it will be to sync with that remote team.

In the end, it all boils down to the particular requirements of the project in question and which of the two would contribute to a better and more efficient completion.

4. Interview

As the list narrows down to the top few developers or development companies who seem to meet all the conditions, a face-to-face interview will allow you to determine who among them is the best fit. A live conversation enables you to:

• Analyze how well you two communicate. No matter how talented or competent the software developer may be, if the dialog doesn’t run smoothly, the project is unlikely to, as well.
• Question them in greater detail about the type of software and technologies they’ve worked on before.
• Test their problem-solving skills by presenting them with a set of tasks that resemble the ones they will need to complete as a part of the project. How well they perform during this stage could help you predict their turnaround times, as well.
• Discuss the pricing and set expectations upfront.

Note that, although an HR is usually the person who carries out the interview, the best way to predict the success of the future collaboration is to have an additional team member present - an employee who will be working closely with the new developer on a regular basis. It is essential to have someone who will be involved in the project present during the interview since they are the ones who are most familiar with the requirements. Not only that - you want your project manager to click with the newly appointed development professional. Unfortunately, if the two don’t get along, no talent or experience will compensate for the lack of understanding between them.

What do you look for in a developer? Please, share your thoughts with us and help your industry peers make the right decision by paying close attention to the most relevant aspects of their capabilities.

Mike is an Australian business consulting specialist. He’s working with companies that outsource their IT maintenance. He often writes about technology, business and marketing and is a regular contributor on several sites.