In the digital economy, it can be surprisingly difficult to find the right programmer for your business. Even though the field is booming, they’re in such high demand that fighting for the one with the proper skills, work ethic, and vision can be daunting. Throw in your desire to find someone who gels with the rest of the team and you may quickly start to feel over your head.
If you’re fortunate enough to already have tech personnel on your team and you’re simply looking to add to your potential, it’s important to utilize their knowledge to the fullest when hiring a new programmer – especially if you know nothing about it. Most programmers know when they’re talking to someone who doesn’t understand their language, and that indicates that there is potential for a lot of headaches and miscommunication that could turn them off from the job altogether.
What do you do if you’re looking to hire your first programmer to the team? How do you know who would be a good hire and how to speak to them to ensure they are comfortable with the challenges ahead and your leadership? We’ll outline a few things to make sure you know before you dive in.
If you’re fortunate enough to already have tech personnel on your team and you’re simply looking to add to your potential, it’s important to utilize their knowledge to the fullest when hiring a new programmer – especially if you know nothing about it. Most programmers know when they’re talking to someone who doesn’t understand their language, and that indicates that there is potential for a lot of headaches and miscommunication that could turn them off from the job altogether.
What do you do if you’re looking to hire your first programmer to the team? How do you know who would be a good hire and how to speak to them to ensure they are comfortable with the challenges ahead and your leadership? We’ll outline a few things to make sure you know before you dive in.
- Make sure you know what you need
Think you have a good idea of what skills you will need moving forward? Make sure you double and triple check. Consult experts, build relationships with programmers, do everything you can to make sure that you are full aware of the requirements moving forward. This is absolutely crucial not just to avoid a potential bad hire but if you’re hiring a programmer for a new project, they’re going to desire as much information as possible up front.
- Make sure they are active problem solvers
Knowing how to code is simply a base-level skill for programmers – their ability to problem-solve is what makes them valuable. For teams with programmers already on board, this can be a fairly simple process as there are a number of standard testing methods depending on the programming language.
As for those who don’t have programmers on their team, there are still ways to get a feel for their capabilities. One tactic is to have them explain the basics of the language you will need them for. Ask questions such as what purpose the language fills, what their last project in the language involved, and if they’re aware of potential problems that could arise. Be sure to also ask them how they go about diagnosing problems as well as how they work to keep up with developments in the industry.
- Above all, make sure they fit the culture
If you hire a programmer that doesn’t work well with your team, then at the end of the day it’s not going to matter how good they are at what they do. The tensions that will arise and poor communication could bring your whole operation grinding to a halt – and if you’re a startup, it could kill your project completely. This can be difficult to assess for any position, but work to get a sense of their personal values and ask how they generally work through communicating with others.
