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Key Aspects of Vetting Developers for Building a Great Tech Team
If you’re the product owner or someone responsible for meeting delivery deadlines, you want your team to have the highest possible sprint completion %, write more high-quality code, and reduce time-to-market. There are, as always, numerous factors that contribute to success, but the most important is having the right people doing the right things.
The high rate of software developer burnout is a major problem, as is the time and money required to find and vet potential new hires. It’s likely your responsibility if you hire a developer, and then they bail on you after two months.
In this post, we will guide you through the key aspects to keep in mind while vetting developers for your team.
Table of Contents
Why vetting developers is important?
Over 20 million software developers work in more than 100 thousand software development organizations worldwide.
Why, when there is such a large pool of skilled people around the world, do so many companies still have terrible experiences? It’s common for these issues to arise when startups and SMEs, short on time or technical resources, fail to conduct thorough reviews of the developers they hire.
Having all the details at your disposal will allow you to make more informed decisions when comparing estimates, securing necessary permissions, and ensuring the project’s continuous viability and ultimate success. But what criteria should guide your assessments?
Here Are Four Things To Keep In Mind When You Search For a Reliable Developer:
Interface and User Experience Design
Examining the online presence of the person you are considering hiring is the first and quickest step in doing due diligence. If you are hiring someone to develop a website, you can look at their own website and evaluate them through these questions:
- What do you feel about their website design?
- Have they taken great care to make sure everything is understandable?
- Is their website riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes?
- Do you feel like you can trust the site?
- Would you feel good if this website belong to you?
The final query is probably the most crucial. Make sure their website is up to par before considering them as a development partner to help design your website or web app.
Portfolio Analysis
Assessing how well the candidates’ skills are portrayed in their work portfolio is the second step in assessing your developer(s). You’ve noticed that the candidate you’re considering has a professional online presence, but how have they fared in actual client situations?
A portfolio of their work is the best way to get a feel for the breadth and depth of the services this individual provides. It’s crucial that you request a genuine portfolio of work rather than settling for a hazy explanation of a few projects and a list of the technologies the person claims to be experienced in.
At least 2-3 different projects from a variety of clientele should be included in a genuine portfolio. Double-check that the portfolio’s samples are appropriate for your needs. A candidate might be a master in developing mobile apps, but if you need someone with full-stack experience, they might not be right for you.
Code Reliability
The fourth and last step in making sure your software outsourcing team is trustworthy is entirely discretionary but highly recommended. In order to evaluate a freelancer’s coding skills, you should request samples of their work. There are two primary paths you can take if you lack technical expertise. One choice is to hire an independent contractor to complete the task at hand in exchange for payment. The alternative is to use a service like PullRequest.
Exactly what is meant by the term “code review”?
An act of reviewing the code of another programmer to ensure its readability and maintainability for future programmers. The goal of writing comprehensible code is to allow other developers to take over maintenance of the code without spending too much effort attempting to figure out the rationale.
You’re in the driver’s seat if you know how to code and have access to an expert who can assess building layouts. Request code samples from the individual.
Why is it important to conduct code reviews?
We don’t understand the need for a code review if the final product’s appearance has already been viewed. Why does the code behind the product matter if it appears and functions as expected? The truth is that there exists an infinite number of ways to write code to achieve the same goal. But if you want a product that can grow with your needs, can be expanded without causing problems for existing users, and won’t crash when people start interacting with it, you’ll need to make sure the code is written correctly and adheres to industry standards.
Personal Interview
When screening candidates, the personal interview is the final proving ground. All of your potential choices have passed the first four tests and are now in the last round of evaluation. It’s thrilling to believe you’ve finally discovered the one, but it may be devastating to turn them down after all your time and energy.
Now you must evaluate the soft skills. Here are the top five criteria we use to hire new employees. The 5 main factors to look for in interpersonal interviews are;
- Communication skills
- Responsiveness
- Critical Thinking
- Listening Skills
Types of Tests & Steps an Employer Has to Consider When Hiring a Developer
Verifying all potential candidates is a prerequisite to making a sound decision. Here, we’ll have a look at the verification and testing procedure in minute detail to help you select the ideal tech staff for your company.
Pre-Screening Tests
The first step in the selection process is called “pre-screening,” and it involves either the HR manager doing the matching manually or using specialized software. The process is already complicated enough because it includes investigating not only the candidate’s resume but also their profiles on
The tried-and-true method of locating a pool of qualified applicants is Linkedin;
Phone Screening
Though some managers may view it as antiquated, it is nevertheless commonly utilized because of its potential to reveal the candidate’s purpose and prescreen him with little to no advance work on either party’s part.
Programming Skills & Coding Tests
Coding or programming tests (also known as technical screening) are useful for gauging a candidate’s level of expertise in this area. This section could be broken down into two subparts: tests of the candidate’s knowledge and proficiency with a specific technology or framework, and tests of his or her ability to think clearly under pressure and apply prior experience to novel situations.
Try out any of these platforms that were made with testing programmers in mind:
#1 TestDome safeguards its users against employer-side cheating while also providing them with real-world work samples and timed practice assessments.
#2 Devskiller. To better comprehend the findings of the applicants, Devskiller incorporates comprehensive analytics and reporting. Devskiller uses a custom anti-cheating system that relies on a combination of a plagiarism checker and an IP address scanner.
If you want pre-vetted candidates who’ve already gone through rigorous testing, try ellow.
Live Coding
The live coding phase is the most challenging part of the procedure since it allows the interviewer to observe the candidate’s coding style and approach in action as he or she works through a variety of coding challenges in real-time. It’s common practice to employ screen sharing for such purposes, which makes the whole thing interactive and fun.
It’s common for live coding sessions to last anything from 15 minutes to an hour. Scaling, however, is difficult since there may be too many people involved in the interviewing process, which makes the whole thing very slow.
Onsite Interview
An independent onsite interview can help determine whether or not a candidate is a good fit for a company. Make things simpler for yourself by outlining the questions and activities you will need to complete ahead of time.
If you think the candidate is a good fit for your organization, it’s important to close the interview by outlining the company’s vision and the project’s goals. Skilled developers want a good salary and interesting work. Therefore, it’s likely that you’ll be questioned about your project and what makes it interesting throughout an on-site meeting. If you need to quickly and easily expand your development capabilities, offshore development teams should be considered.
When Vetting Developers; Look Beyond Coding Tests
When vetting developers, it can be problematic to rely on examinations that merely evaluate prior expertise. Since programming languages evolve over time, the skills your engineers require today may change in the next six months.
Static programming examinations reveal nothing about a candidate’s potential for growth and change. In other words, while these assessments can give you a sense of where your applicants stand in terms of their current knowledge, they can’t tell you how well they’ll take to training on new technology or procedures.
Cognitive Aptitude Testing
Cognitive aptitude testing is one of the best predictors of long-term job performance, and it is especially useful for those seeking programming positions. Research over many years has shown that a candidate’s cognitive ability is the single most important indicator of future success in their chosen profession. Aptitude exams for the mind evaluate things like analytical thinking, memory, and focus, as well as the capacity to take in and process new information and put it to use in practical situations.
Every one of these skills is crucial for any programmer worth their salt. You may learn a lot about an applicant’s capacity for learning and adapting to new technologies in the future by using their cognitive aptitude as a hiring metric.
Therefore, it is crucial that any prospective programmers you hire are well-versed in the tools and languages in use at your organization. Numerous businesses use language-specific examinations to gauge a candidate’s level of proficiency in that field. A lot of businesses also look at candidates’ GitHub Repos for code samples.
Signing The Code of Honor
In order to avoid task depletion and leaks, reputable providers restrict how often and how long their customers are exposed to the same assessment content, keep close tabs on test results, and scour the web for information on leaked tasks and solutions.
Because it is more difficult to game an unpredictable system, test randomization, a platform feature that permits automated on-the-spot test creation from a pool of preconfigured equivalent tasks, is useful in reducing instances of cheating.
Detection of Plagiarism
The second pillar of effective online recruiting fraud protection is detection, which can be one of three types: detection of plagiarism (code similarity checking), detection of identity misrepresentation (ID verification), and detection of abnormal connectivity patterns (IP checking).
A platform’s ability to detect instances of plagiarism in source code is predicated on comparing a solution to a corpus of source code that has been collected from various online sources. Applying standard plagiarism detection techniques often fails to produce desirable results. This is because programming languages have structural differences from natural languages, which must be accounted for in the detection system.
Cheaters who copy-paste solutions often attempt to fool similarity checkers by blindly applying certain code tweaks to “apply the makeup” without affecting the core of the solution (which they typically don’t understand). The goal of high-quality source code similarity checkers is to reveal such schemes.
ID Verification
In order to confirm a person’s identity, identity documents are often scanned using the candidate’s camera. There are providers who focus on identity verification using these inputs, and it is in the best interest of both employers and testing platforms to take advantage of these services in order to reduce the number of instances of identity deception during testing.
Keeping an Eye on Switching of IP Address
Finally, excellent testing platforms provide a reliable signal on fraud by monitoring connectivity patterns for things like test-taker IP address changes, in-test device switching, IP address switches to addresses previously associated with fraud, patterns suggesting session handover, and so on.
Platforms, like other forms of fraud detection technologies, cannot definitively distinguish cheaters from honest users; at best, they can only aid in determining the likelihood of fraud occurring. Remember that an honest but unlucky test taker could be flagged as a possible fraudster by a machine under exceptional conditions.
If a candidate’s session was flagged with a fraud warning, a good screening strategy that gives a reasonable benefit of the doubt assumes that the first follow-up interview should begin with a detailed discussion of the solution submitted in the flagged session, ideally by asking for a high-level explanation of the solution structure and what-if exploration of problem variants.
Minimize Effort with an Automated Vetting Tool Ellow
Particularly when screening candidates from afar, the use of an online coding interview tool can alleviate a lot of stress. The candidate’s tech stack and level of experience inform the tools’ generation of tests. The candidate’s performance on these assessments will give you a decent idea of whether or not they will be a good addition to your team.
But how can we adequately assess a candidate’s live programming skills?
So, here we are happy to introduce ellow.io to you: a global talent marketplace that serves as a bridge between reputable businesses and qualified individuals. Elow.io is an AI-driven platform that provides a unified platform for recruiting, monitoring, and managing remote developers. Fast-Tracking your remote hiring is easy with Ellow’s access to a “Global” pool of “High-Quality” candidates.
We’ve assembled an excellent pool of trained and trustworthy personnel to meet your needs. Here is how easy the Vetting process through Ellow Looks Like:
Jisha Panicker
