How to Hire Developers for a Startup
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How to Hire a Developer for a Startup: A Summary
Possible hiring models
In-house employment, team augmentation, dedicated team.
Costs
Depending on the hiring model.
Key steps of the hiring process
Defining requirements for candidates, screening & interviewing, hiring, onboarding, team building, scaling a team.
Talents usually required for a startup
Software architect, UX/UI designer, front-end developer, back-end developer, QA engineer.
Hiring Models:
One of the key steps in hiring software developers is choosing the right model. The models differ in costs as well as in the way employment and management responsibilities are distributed.
In-house employment
You hire a group of developers on a long-term basis, take care of their onboarding and training, and ensure that they have the essential hardware and software to do their jobs (either in your office or remotely).
Your organisation is in charge of employment and accompanying legal documentation.
Your PM or a team lead is in charge of management.
Developers' remuneration, which includes payroll taxes and sick leave payments.
Caution: You can build a cohesive and devoted team with this hiring option, but the process may be too costly and time-consuming and cause serious delays in project time-to-market, which is critical for a startup. |
Outsourcing
You partner up with either freelancing programmers or an IT company that lends you its resources under a team augmentation or a dedicated team arrangement.
Caution: Cooperation with freelancers can’t ensure risk mitigation in data confidentiality, adherence to schedule, and software quality. Hence, this type of outsourcing can’t be considered startup-friendly. |
Among startup-friendly outsourcing options, you can choose between team augmentation and a dedicated team
Team augmentation
You’ve hired one or more developers from a staffing firm with a vast pool of IT specialists to supplement your current in-house team on a temporary basis.
Vendor is responsible for employment and related legal documentation.
Management - your project manager or team leader.
T&M (according to the hourly rates of the developers).
Best for: Established startup teams that prioritize fast time to market and face a tight deadline; startups that experience skill gaps or enter a software evolution stage and need to scale up their team.
Dedicated team
You’ve enlisted the help of a self-managed development team from a staffing organisation to work on your project (or a piece of it) while adhering to all of your technical, business, and management requirements.
Employment and accompanying legal documentation are the responsibility of the vendor.
T&M T&M T&M T&M T&M T&M T&M T&M T (according to the hourly rates of the developers).
Best for: Idea-driven startup initiatives with no in-house development team yet; startups who have a number of products in development and whose in-house team’s efforts have to be focused on a top-priority product.
Talents Your Startup Needs to Develop Software
Your team’s composition is usually defined by the scale and type of software your startup creates – a web app, a mobile app, SaaS/XaaS, etc. Below, we give a list of common developer roles for a startup with a mid-scale software project of any type.
Software architect
Makes a software architecture plan.
Ensures that the architecture meets the project's needs.
The cloud infrastructure is configured (for a SaaS startup).
UX/UI designer
Makes a graphic depiction of the capabilities of your software.
Ensures a natural interface between the user and the software.
Prepares visual materials for a front-end developer.
Mockups for user interface design are implemented.
Delivers client-side script code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (for web apps) or Objective-C/Swift, Java/Kotlin, C# (for desktop apps) (for iOS & Android apps).
Back-end developer
Delivers server-side script code written in.NET, Python, Java, Node.js, PHP, or Go.
Creates databases.
Integrates APIs on a regular basis.
PM/Team Lead
Develops a development schedule and assigns assignments.
Provides an overview of the team's production.
Maintains open lines of communication with all project stakeholders.
QA engineer
Creates and executes various sorts of tests in accordance with programme requirements.
It keeps track of the results of the tests.
Verifies that software meets the quality requirements that were previously set.
How to Hire Developers for a Startup: Tips for Each Process Step
1. Defining requirements for candidates
The first recommendation from Livyoung Realtech for finding developers for a company is to make sure you know who you’re searching for. From a software requirements specification, your requirements to prospective candidates should specify both the work approach you expect (proactivity, leadership, time management, etc.) and technical competencies based on your program’s technical stack (SRS).
2. Screening and interviewing
The table below shows the scope of your screening and interviewing responsibilities for both in-house and outsourcing hiring models.
3. Hiring
If you opt to hire developers in-house, you’ll need to devote a large amount of HR and legal resources to enrolling each one.
The vendor-client relationship is founded on a Service Level Agreement, which states that the vendor is the legal employer of all developers while you use their expertise on your project. In other words, regardless of how many talents you’ll need to join your team in the long term, SLA is the only major paper you’ll need to worry about.
4. Onboarding
In-house onboarding for startups entails establishing business values and explaining the motives behind the software concept with new hires. It entails extensive newcomer training efforts, which might come at a hefty cost in terms of your in-house resources’ productivity.
Cooperation with a vendor, even an offshore one, is a definite way to speed up onboarding because a vendor’s developer pool is made up of professionals who are used to quickly adapting to new needs and onboarding in 1-2 weeks. Regular contact between your startup and the engineers of a vendor will streamline your partnership from the start and speed up the ramp-up process even more.
5. Building a team
To create a true team, you must train developers to respect each other’s abilities and responsibilities, communicate in a cordial manner in all situations, and be ready to request and provide assistance at any time. It is normally accomplished in-house with the support of long-term HR training or a small, carefully controlled test project.
However, for most businesses, devoting so much time and effort on training is a luxury. A dedicated team cooperation model may be a viable alternative because it allows you to get the benefits of tight teamwork without having to spend in team building and instead outsourcing it entirely to a vendor.
6. Scaling a team for software evolution
After releasing an MVP to the market, you may encounter new challenges as your programme evolves: advanced feature implementation (e.g., AI, blockchain, AR), CI/CD setup, continuous software maintenance and support, and so on. For an in-house team, this means a number of new roles and a months-long wait for recruiters to fill the positions with qualified applicants, which can stifle software development.
After signing a ‘team scale up’ amendment to the SLA, your needs can be met in a matter of days with outsourced cooperation. You gain access to the vendor’s pool of professionals in cutting-edge tech, DevOps, L1-L3 support, and other domains after sharing a list of resources required for your software evolution, and you can welcome new necessary talents into your team.
Costs of Hiring Software Developers for a Startup
Hiring costs depend on multiple factors:
IN-HOUSE HIRING
TEAM AUGMENTATION
DEDICATED TEAM
Cost structure
Job advertising, HR efforts, legal efforts, workplace setup, employee training.
Efforts for finding a vendor and interviewing shortlisted candidates.
Efforts for finding a vendor and interviewing shortlisted candidates.
Investment
You invest in the hiring process until you find a hire.
You pay only upon completion of hiring.
You pay only upon completion of hiring.
Onboarding
Full onboarding may take up to several months
Onboarding is estimated to take ~1 week.
Full team onboarding is estimated to take ~1-2 weeks.
Service reimbursement
The payment depends on the developers’ seniority level and location of your company and requires additional payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, etc., depending on the state).
Your payment to a vendor is usually based on the T&M model (according to developers’ hourly rates, which depend on a vendor’s location and developers’ seniority level).
Your payment to a vendor is usually based on the T&M model (according to developers’ hourly rates, which depend on a vendor’s location and developers’ seniority level).
Consider Livyoung Realtech as Your Outsourcing Partner
Team augmentation
Hire experienced talent to speed up time to market, get rid of skill deficiency, or scale your team after MVP launch. We offer:
Onboarding within 1 week.
Collaboration launch in 1-2 weeks.
Hire a self-managed team of skilled tech experts to work on your project or its part. We offer:
Collaboration launch in 1-2 weeks.
Software concept analysis by our business analysts with 5-9 years of experience.
Services of conversion-driven UX/UI designers.
Result-oriented management by a full-scale Project Management Office.
Transparency in cooperation and use of proven KPI metrics.
Agile software development and iterative software evolution.
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