5 Strategies to Build Your Software Development Team Strategy that Work

Today, the best developers might not be looking for new jobs tomorrow. Instead, they may be focusing on side projects or other ways to continue growing their skills and maintain an active software development portfolio. As a result, competition for top talent can be fierce. So how do you bring together an awesome team of software developers that’s willing to work for you? It isn’t as simple as posting your job opening on websites like LinkedIn or Github. Instead, some key strategies will give you a competitive edge when it comes to hiring the best and brightest. This article details five strategies to build your software development company strategy that works!

Change the way you think about hiring a software developer 

Software Development Company is an interesting group of professionals. They can be incredibly passionate about their work, they can be incredibly stressed out, they can come from any number of different backgrounds and they can have particular skill sets. Keeping all of these factors in mind, once you change the way you think about hiring software developers, it will be much easier to put together a recruitment strategy that works. If you think about hiring software developers as you think about hiring a construction crew to build a house, you’re on the right track. Construction workers and builders will have very different skill sets than software developers, but they’ll also face different challenges and will have different expectations from a hiring manager.

Source your developers like you source your product

One great way to source your software developers is to source like you source your custom software development company. If you have a product or a service that you’re looking to develop, you can similarly source your software developers. The process can be broken down into three steps: - Define what you want to build - Find the right team to build it - Manage the process to completion - Define what you want to build First, define what you want to build. This might sound obvious, but it’s important to get this right. This can be as detailed as you’d like it to be, but remember that the less time it takes to build your product, the better. Moreover, the more accurately your specification captures what you want out of the product, the less likely it is that you’ll have to change it along the way. - Find the right team to build it Next, find the right team to build it. If you’re looking to hire a development team to build a new feature for your product, try to source and recruit the same way you would source and recruit for your product. Once you’ve got a list of potential options, try to vet each team and ensure that you’re bringing the right team on board for the job. - Manage the process to completion Finally, manage the process to completion. Once you’ve sourced the right team, manage the process with the same care and attention that you would use to manage the product development process. You want to make sure that each team member has everything they need to do the job correctly, and that you’re checking in regularly to see how things are going.

Continuously build and retain your talent

Once you’ve brought your team of developers on board, it’s time to start building or retaining your talent. There are several ways that you can do this, but the most important thing to remember is that you’re building and retaining a team, not just putting together a collection of individual developers. This means that you’ll want to continue building and maintaining relationships with each member of your team. It’s also important to keep an eye on the future and to know what your team will look like in 6-12 months. You can do this by setting up a talent development program that helps your employees climb their way up the skill ladder and helps you to predict where your team will be in a year. 

Don’t forget about culture and company reputation

Finally, don’t forget about culture and company reputation. There are a lot of articles written about hiring the best developers and building a team with the right skill set. But you also need to consider culture and company reputation. In many ways, these factors matter just as much as skills. If you’re bringing together a group of individuals that don’t mesh well or have a poor work ethic, you’re going to have a hard time completing projects and improving your bottom line. Moreover, the way that you handle hiring will also play a role in your company’s culture. If you’re impatient and you rush the hiring process, you’ll likely end up with a subpar team. If you’re patient and willing to wait for the right people, you’ll likely bring on board a team that will add value for years to come.

Ask for referrals from your current employees

Finally, ask for referrals from your current employees. This might sound like a no-brainer, but if you’re looking to bring new developers on board, you should start with the people you already have. It is estimated that companies receive up to 90% of their new hires from employee referrals. And these hires are 3 times more likely to stay with the company for 5 years or more. Moreover, employee referral programs are extremely simple to implement. All you have to do is decide how much you’re willing to pay for a hire that comes from a referral and put that in writing. Employees will likely want some kind of bonus for introducing their friends and family to your company, so make sure that you have a referral program in place so you can take advantage of this strategy.

Conclusion

Building a software development team is a challenging process. When you’re hiring developers, you need to keep in mind that they are a very different group of professionals than any other type of employee. You also have to be careful to source the right talent, manage the hiring process, and make sure that you have the right culture and reputation. In the end, hiring the best developers means making sure that your hiring process is efficient, that you’re sourcing candidates from the right places, and that you’re focusing on continuous team building and development.