Collaboration with remote developers has been all the rage recently – the reasons are clear. With the new situation, many companies are adjusting to working remotely.
Allowing developers to work from wherever they’re located is a good way to expand your talent pool. However, it requires some knowledge, skills, and effort to effectively source, hire, and work with remote developers.
Are you still uncertain about hiring remote developers for your team? How do you know when your business is truly in need of them? Of course, some businesses might just need software, not an extra team member. If that’s the case, it might be better to have a look online for any software that might already be available. Some developers actually sell their software with FastSpring (get more info here), so there may be existing software that could work just as well. However, if you think you may need a developer, let’s take a look at some key indicators.
Key indicators you need to hire a remote developer
#1 You struggle to find the desired skills in your team
According to Gartner, about 22% of the CIOs struggle to find a person with a desired skill set for a certain position. In fact, it happens with a lot of businesses when their team is running short of the skills required to accomplish certain or specific tasks in a proper way. If this is your case, you need to think of hiring a remote dedicated developer, as it may be much easier to find tech talent through remote hiring methods.
#2 You struggle against increased development costs
When hiring in-house developers, you need to take into account not only their salaries but also legally required benefits such as social security, unemployment insurance, medicare, insurance, retirement, bonuses, etc. These costs can really add up. When hiring a remote developer, these expenses are not your obligation. Of course, you can add these benefits to make your job offer more attractive, but there is no expectation to do so.
#3 You need faster delivery of your project
The cost of projects is strongly affected by the timeframe of the project. The faster you complete the project, the fewer costs you will bear. So, when you need faster project delivery, consider hiring remote tech specialists.
Advantages and disadvantages of hiring remote engineers
There are plenty of significant advantages of hiring remote developers. But, there are also some disadvantages, too. Let’s discuss the advantages first.
Access to a broad pool of specialists
You can access a broader pool of tech talent across the globe.
Faster time to hire
With a broader pool of talent, finding the right person can be faster than sourcing locally.
Reduced cost of software development
By seeking outsourced tech talent, you can take advantage of the fact that many countries have lower costs of living, so you can hire qualified developers for less $ per hour.
Flexibility
There are two approaches to hire remote employees: dedicated team and outstaff. The outstaffing process involves the following steps:
- A company defines the requirements for developers on a project
- The outstaffing partner provides you with a list of specialists who meet the requirements
- A company’s representative interviews the shortlisted specialists and choose the best ones
- The developers become a part of your team
Dedicated teams usually include a Project Manager. In this case, the team exchanges information via a PM or team lead that guides the dedicated team through the development cycle.
Hiring a dedicated developer for your project will generally look like:
- A company defines the requirements for a project and sends it to the outsourcing provider
- The provider assembles the team and creates the roadmap to build a product
- During a development process, you communicate with the development team on a regular basis
- The result of the collaboration with a dedicated team is a ready-to-market product or finished project.
The main difference between these models is their objectives. The purpose of outstaffing is to hire specialists to join your team and work together as long as you need it. The purpose of a dedicated team is to complete a particular project, such as building a website or app, developing an MVP, etc.
As for disadvantages, or let’s say risks, you should be aware of the following:
Communication gap
If you hire developers from other countries, you may have to deal with differences in time zones or difficulties in language barriers. However, these can be mitigated by scheduling meetings at a time that fits all of the meeting members and using project management tools, messengers, and video conferencing services to make sure everyone in a team is on the same page.
Control risks
For some managers, hiring remote developers means reducing control over the development process. “I won’t be able to control my team if I hire people remotely” – you can hear that much too often. If this is one of your fears, just answer these: how exactly do you control your team members in the office? Do you walk every ten minutes and look at people’s screens? It is the illusion that if you can see people around you in the office, then they must be working. And if you don’t see them, you imagine they spend working hours lying on their backs. The truth is that employees can be watching cat videos or shopping online all day long in the office and you wouldn’t even notice. So if you have a fear of losing control, consider implementing an effective approach to measure real results of people’s work.
Overseas costs and legal implications
When your company hires employees overseas the payment question comes up. The payment options are going to vary depending on the type of an employee, the specific country and the length of employment. Here are four options of how you can pay your overseas employees remotely:
- To pay the remote team member on your home country payroll
- Ask a third party company to place employees on their payroll
- Outsource payroll to handle your remote employee
- Pay remote employees as independent contractors
When considering any of these options for paying team members overseas, you should prioritize compliance with foreign tax and social security laws. Dismissive attitude to this question may lead to unexpected non-compliance issues, penalties, and fines.
How to hire remote developers
Step 1: Determine the requirements you expect from candidates
First, set out the expectations you seek from remote developers. Go beyond just technical requirements, mention desired personal, communication, and other skills. Consider adding skills required to succeed at remote working such as strong collaborative skills, good time management, responsibility and accountability, or good organizational skills.
Step 2: Pre-screen candidates
When looking for tech talent it’s increasingly common to ask candidates to take assessments. For example, team members with knowledge of the relevant tech stack can vet the candidate before an interview. However, companies can delegate this part to companies like YouTeam. Their engineers pass a multi-stage screening process conducted first by the HR departments of their partner agencies (you could navigate here to know more), and then by YouTeam itself.
Developers usually have interviews that consist of two parts – a technical assessment and coding skills test. A coding test is meant to determine an applicant’s background in software development and expertise in writing code. During a technical assessment, the interviewer asks the applicant about specific experience on different tools and processes.
After that, you can perform an initial phone or video screening on candidates whose assessment results match your requirements to get to know if they are a good fit for the position before proceeding to the interview process. Once that is done, it would be advisable to get assistance from a bpss checking service to validate the accuracy of the information provided by the candidates as part of the recruitment.
Step 3: Consider the final interview
A final interview usually includes a more in-depth discussion about how a candidate is supposed to operate in the role. It also covers the candidate’s salary expectations, working schedule, and perks that come along with working at your company. Make sure candidates are not only interested but fully skilled in working remotely. These questions may help you to find it out:
- Do you mind working remotely?
- What pros and cons can you name in working remotely?
- Are you able to track your KPIs to monitor progress?
- How collaborative do you think you are?
Ask what kind of benefits would matter to candidates. Here are some examples:
- Professional training programs. Remote workers, like most employees, seek to grow professionally. So you could offer them tickets to tech conferences, or enroll them in online courses they would be interested to take.
- Vacation plan. It’s common for remote specialists to end up working longer hours than office employees. This means that they’ll definitely appreciate a generous vacation plan.
- Health insurance. Offering health insurance for your employees and their family members will make a benefits package much more attractive.
Final word
Hiring a remote software development team may be overwhelming, especially for the first time. However, if you know how to organize the whole process properly, you can find reliable tech talent that would contribute significantly to your project’s success in the long run. Hopefully, the tips listed above will help you understand if you truly need to hire remote developers and what the hiring process is.
Just keep in mind that no matter who you hire – in-house or remote team specialists – your essential goal is to build or grow a culture that will make your employees feel respected and appreciated, even if they’re miles or oceans apart.
Author: Anna Grechko is a marketing enthusiast and knows the field inside out. She is the marketing specialist at Smart IT. Sharing knowledge is a big part of her career, so Anna actively seeks to spread good vibes, and collaborate with the great tech and marketing minds of the world.