Despite putting up the detailed job description and conducting extensive screening tests, recruiting a skilful software developer who also matches your business and budget goals can be tricky. Typically, you must access the quality of their skills, level of their knowledge, and motivation to work for the betterment of the company’s future through four approaches:
1. Goals alignment to check if their professional objectives are similar to yours.
2. A quick-and-dirty skills test to evaluate the candidate’s abilities on a superficial level, practically through coding tests.
3. An in-depth technical interview for criticizing each aspect of their development or programming skills and problem-solving techniques.
4. A traditional interview for looking into their personality traits, professional qualities, communication skills, working style, and understanding of job responsibilities.
What Should You Look For In A Software Developer? – Top 8 Skills
1. Communication & Collaboration skills
For many of us, effective communication skills come on the last spot, but in reality, they must be on the top!
Without good communication skills, the software developer might fail to make you understand his thought process and plans. He should be aware of what, how, and when to share ideas in multiple ways. A highly-communicative developer will save your time that can be wasted in confusion caused due to misunderstandings. The importance of communication skills comes second to none!
Upon asking Jason Schwartz, the product owner at Spotify, about high-quality developers, he said, “Many technically proficient engineers are not considered great because they can’t communicate their ideas.”
Good communication lays the foundation of tremendous collaborative skills, and remember, collaboration skills are equally important because this is how your developer will work with his team efficiently, partner with seniors, and market his achievements to the stakeholders. Not to mention, collaborative teamwork skills are necessary to work unanimously towards the goals.
2. A Perfect Blend of Pragmatism & Perfectionism
No one can be a perfectionist, and this is one thing your developer must also understand. He must be able to keep the balance between “doing everything logically with the analytical and methodical approach for delivering refined and ingenious solutions after taking enough time” and “bringing out the secret DIY hacks to achieve the target in the limited hours or on a low budget.” He must choose to act as a pragmatic or perfectionist considering the situation but must always be able to deliver work.
Simply explained by Russel Simmons, Former CTO and Co-Founder of Yelp, “Great programmers have the ability to make both masterful/quick/dirty hacks and elegant/refined/robust solutions, and the wisdom to choose which is appropriate for a given problem. Some lesser programmers seem to lack the extreme attention to detail necessary for some problems. Others are stuck in perfectionist mode.”
3. Agile Project Management with Scrum
What do you need your software developer to be familiar with? The shortest answer is “agile software development processes and scrum management.”
On the one hand, the developer must be equipped with agile experience to keep up with rapidly-paced mobile app and software development projects. You can sum up it in 3 Cs: collaboration, communication & comfort.
On the other hand, scrum project management is the most needed skill to tackle and lead agile development tasks. It shapes a coherent, collaborative team through proper communication.
4. Expertise In Programming Languages & Coding Skills
How can developers comprehend language, app design, or framework without technical and industry-specific knowledge? Without coding skills, how can the developer be able to create, code, and develop applications?
Always keep programming skills a priority while hiring a software developer. The sought-after candidate should prove his proficiency in multiple programming languages and broader their technology stack. He must be professionally trained to put core development skills to use when needed the most. Coders who are well-versed in more functional programming languages and coding skills can be your “jack-of-all-trades”, letting you develop creative, cost-effective, and cross-platform applications.
Choose the one who is thoroughly knowledgeable of the functionality of each stack and has basic coding skills, delivering end-to-end development solutions.
From writing efficient codes to putting up tested apps, error checking for spotting coding problems through peer-reviewing work to use dynamic programming languages, sweating to details to accepting stretch assignments, ensuring the software work on the whole to tackling front-end or back-end problems in application development – the programmer must execute his deep knowledge and skill with agility. Or, we can say, the developers must have the ability to find the answers to the “Whys” and “Whats” of programming.
Among all the technical skills, don’t overlook his creativity and competitive nature, ability to appreciate the fundamentals of design, the methods he opts for when solving problems, prior experience, the scale of the newest technologies he has handled, overall exposure to coding, and thought process of creating innovative application algorithms.
5. Ability To Improve And Learn
Your software developer should be a “fast learner” – an individual who is always motivated to make continuous improvements, pick up the latest technologies and devices, learn new programming techniques quickly, and accept ever-evolving company dynamics.
Continual self-learning for refining professional speciality and practising knowledge-based skills is excellent for the developers to bring the needed changes in the software development space for innovation and success.
6. Attention to detail
You can measure a software developer’s qualities on multiple scales, and one of them is “strong attention to detail” to ensure his code works the first time.
The engineer should not find shortcuts; instead, conduct a detailed review or double-check all variables and functions before submitting. They are still humans and can surely make mistakes, but the key is to evaluate each aspect attentively to write cleaner code.
7. Ready To Run Sample Test
Do you find your developer reluctant to application and code testing?! If yes, it’s absolutely a NO-NO!
Developers must write and run sample tests beforehand to catch the mistakes in the workflow of the application or coding errors. Their laid-back behaviour in testing might show their laziness or inability to understand the complications and importance of time that will be wasted if bugs are found in the final run.
The quality of a good programmer is not that he prepares a code in a minimum time and calls it a day, but invests time in extensive testing without being over-confident.
8. The peak of Wisdom with Problem-Solving
If you hire a senior software developer who gives attention to each detail, visualizes every aspect before final submission, or doesn’t act indifferent to testing and also possesses problem-solving skills, you have found a gem!
Instead of cursing himself for developing a failed application, he must own the problem and refactor it promptly with his analytical skills. Remember, analytical capabilities are directly tied to problem-solving skills.
He must always be ready with his arsenal of out-of-the-box ideas to find you an ingenious solution sooner by pulling off different cards!
Every problem with an existing code set must be handled appropriately, clearly, and concisely while prioritizing logic for maintainability. Regardless of the worst scenarios, the code programmer must stay composed and duteous.
In short, painstaking meticulousness is necessarily required to thrive as a capable software engineer.
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