Hiring Software Developers Remotely - Everything You Need to Know

Despite remote work being here to stay, both mature companies and first-time startup initiators consider running a remote business process challenging. When it comes to hiring a tech team and launching the project development, the list of possible challenges includes but isn’t limited to choosing the winning destination, screening and validating the candidates, and managing the development process in an effective way.

That’s why this article dwells on the benefits and the best practices to hire a remote team of software developers, plus lists the crucial mistakes to avoid so that your development path is pitfalls-free.

The Main Benefits of Remote Hiring

In our recent article, we have already dwelled on the pros of remote work for both the developers and the businesses hiring them. So, below are some of the value-adding advantages of running a development process remotely but keep in mind that unlocking them becomes possible only when you have a clear hiring tactic, recruitment expertise, and remote management experience. 

• Cost-effectiveness. This is the main benefit of hiring remote tech talent. Remote work is a top-notch opportunity to save rent and equipment costs. You are also welcome to decrease hiring expenses by applying for IT talent sourcing help. 
• Global talent pool. Remote hiring opens up the opportunity to access the global talent pool, choosing the top talent and perfectly matching their core competencies with your project requirements. This is also a way to bridge the talent gap if there are no necessary specialists locally available. The latter case is especially relevant for the projects in need of a very specific programming professional. 
• Agility and flexibility. Usually, remote teams are flexible units unless you hire them full-time by signing the corresponding contract. However, if you hire tech talents on a freelance platform, you can discuss the expected project duration in advance. A development team sourced by tech vendors is even more flexible and agile since you can adjust the team structure anytime by attracting additional specialists or shortening the team. 
• Better productivity. Remote employees are better productive, compared to in-office ones. They are more engaged, and committed, plus have better work-life balance opportunities. However, smart work planning, great self-organizational skills, and transparent management are essential for having a productive and inspired team.

How to Hire a Remote Tech Team - 4 Tactics to Choose From

There are four basic tactics to hire remote tech talent. Each of them has its pros and cons, requiring different approaches to recruitment and management. Let’s review the available opportunities in more detail. 

1. Hire freelance developers

The gig economy is on the rise providing businesses with the opportunity to hire the necessary talent on demand, collaborate with independent contractors and optimize the operational costs. Hiring freelance developers is one of the most intuitive options to set up a development process remotely, however, this tactic also has its pros and cons.

The global talent pool, unlimited choice opportunities, and a reasonable cost for freelance services are the main advantages of hiring tech talent on a freelance platform. However, keep in mind that managing a freelance team could be challenging, especially when the team is gathered from scratch, there is a language barrier, mentality gap and no time zones overlap to work together effectively. 

So, hiring freelance developers can be an option for companies with remote management experience. The best practices learned during the pandemic can be reused as well. 

2. Augment your in-house team

For those businesses with an in-house tech team already gathered, augmenting it with remote developers can be a quick-win tactic. Team augmentation is a value-adding strategy for the projects in urgent need of additional hands and minds. In this case, hiring remote IT staff from a dedicated vendor is the top way to speed up the hiring process, quickly access the necessary expertise, onboard an augmented team, and make the development process run. 

However, team augmentation makes the most sense for the short period. In the long-term perspective, such an approach becomes more expensive, compared to hiring a fully-dedicated team, so this is the next opportunity we are going to overview. 

3. Hire a dedicated development team

Hiring a dedicated development team is the classical approach in software outsourcing. In our recent article, we have already dwelled on the benefits of this strategy and the best practices to hire a dedicated development team for your startup.

In a nutshell, such an approach implies sourcing a ready-made and collaborative team from a tech vendor. The team structure is perfectly tailored to the project requirements so that the customer can avoid overspending and hire only those specialists they really need. Managing a dedicated team, and providing them with a workplace and equipment is the responsibility of the vendor when the customer pays for the services according to the “pay as you go model”. 

4. Set up an offshore development center

As for the last but not least tactic you can follow to hire remote employees for your tech project, consider the opportunity to set up an offshore development center. Running an offshore business comes with several benefits, including but not limited to expanding business presence, cutting operational expenses, and hiring a local workforce at a better cost. 

To explain such a tactic, in brief, setting up an offshore development center means creating a separate IT department in an offshore country to run a development process at a lower cost, compared to the cost to build software in the homeland. This strategy makes the most sense in the long run and is frequently chosen by large companies in need of ongoing tech support.

Choosing a destination to set up an ODC is essential to perfectly balance the operational costs with the quality of the delivered processes. For instance, you can pay attention to Azerbaijan. This is a politically stable country with great prospects for economic growth and a favorable investment environment. There are also a lot of well-educated tech specialists in Azerbaijan, and most of them are pretty English-proficient. 

Your Perfect Remote Software Developer - What Should You Look for?

While there are several tactics to hire remote software developers, there is a set of specific professional and personal traits you should look for, regardless of the hiring strategy you choose. So, below are the must-have traits for a remote software developer.

• Time management and self-organization skills. The skill to manage time and organize the workflow is a must for the remote developer. That’s why it would be wise to ask them about the non-standard situations they have ever faced during a non-technical interview. 
• Communication skills. Communication skill is especially important when running the development process remotely since the clear communication and responsiveness of each of the team members ensures effective collaboration and staying on the same page. 
• The ability to meet deadlines. This is another crucial trait to look for in a remote developer. Consider asking them about the previous-workplace situations when the deadline was missed and suggested ways out. 
• The ability to get the job done. In some cases, procrastinating is normal - it allows for finding non-standard solutions in a shorter time. However, it shouldn’t be an everyday habit of a remote developer, so ask about this personality trait as well. 
• Technical and project-specific competencies. And the most important feature you should look for in your perfect candidate is their technical background, experience, knowledge, and skills. That’s why a lot of companies that decide to hire a remote team from a tech vendor, also hire an independent consultant to help them with technical interviewing of the suggested candidates.

Remote Tech Team Hiring - Mistakes to Avoid

Below are the most common mistakes both the first-time startup initiators and those companies with no remote management experience make. Be sure to avoid them, following a well-planned remote hiring tactic at each of the development steps. 

1. Choosing the wrong strategy. We have overviewed four different tactics to hire remote software developers but each of them should perfectly meet the project specifics. Hiring freelance developers can be an option for companies with remote management experience, while team augmentation is a good solution to strengthen an in-house team quickly and for the short term.

Hiring a dedicated development team is a great tactic for medium to large projects with no extra resources for in-house hiring, and setting up an offshore development center is a top choice of large companies eager to run their IT processes abroad, saving operational costs. 

2. Choosing the wrong destination to hire from. Making a mistake with the hiring destination is also easy. For example, hiring remote developers from India is significantly cheaper than hiring them in Eastern Europe but the mentality gap may greatly affect the development process efficiency. Recently, the high bets were placed on Ukraine - the globally recognized software development leader but now the armed conflict taking place in the country changed the global outsourcing landscape. 

Those startups looking for a perfect price-quality match, wide talent pool, decent level of tech education, and English proficiency of the future candidates, are welcome to consider Azerbaijan as a winning destination to hire from. 

3. Partnering with a not-suitable development company. Сhoosing a software development company to source talent from is another pitfalls-free point. What’s more, making a mistake with the tech vendor can be crucial for your project's success, so you have to be careful. Validate the company’s experience by reviewing their case studies, asking about the similar projects they have developed, researching their online reputation, and running the interview series with the developers to ensure a perfect match.

4. Not clarifying the communication and collaboration practices in advance. When hiring a remote tech team from a development vendor, don’t hesitate to ask about the established practices for collaboration, communication, and control. 

The best ones imply using modern project management tools like Jira or Click Up, instant chats for professional communication like Slack, scheduling daily and weekly meetings with the development team, updating the product owner on development progress via the channel convenient for them, and signing an NDA before the first consultation begins. We, at SpaceBus, stand for a transparent software development process so follow all these practices as well.

Conclusion

Hiring a tech team remotely can be a value-adding development tactic even if you have no experience with managing distributed teams. SpacеBus is a software development outsourcing vendor with top-skilled programmers under our roof.