Hiring a Remote Team? Here’s Your How-To Guide on Finding and Hiring Tech Talent

As remote working becomes the new normal, tech companies and startups that were focused on in-house recruiting have changed their ways of sourcing for quality tech talent and started hiring remote employees.

However, there are some common challenges employers can meet. Where to start from? Where to look for quality candidates? How to choose a suitable location? Which hiring model is better for my business? If you are struggling with these questions, read on to find all the needed answers.

How to Hire Remote Developers in 3 Simple Steps

Remote team collaboration has been all the rage recently—and the reasons are clear. Most companies go remote to approach maximum flexible work commuting minimum time.

Before you go for a remote team structure, you should decide for yourself whether you need it at all. Ask yourself:

• Am I able to find the best professionals in my industry? Or shall I refer to a global talent pool?
• How can I reduce my operation costs? Should I run a physical office or a virtual one?
• How can I boost my developers’ productivity? Shall I make the corporate culture more flexible?

If you decide to reach out to a global talent market, establish a virtual office, and build a flexible company culture—then you are all ready to hire remotely. Read on—this article will guide you through each step of the hiring process of remote software engineers.

Step 1. Consider Different Hiring Options

Before you dive into headhunting, you should catch up with your existing team members and partners, discuss the ongoing and future project goals, consider budgeting constraints, dig into both short-term and long-term goals. It will help you come up with the amount of work that needs to be done by a remote team daily. This step is essential, as building the right team and delegating the tasks are keys to successful startup management.

You should decide which channels to go for remote teams’ hiring. Though most companies delegate this assignment to an HR team, tons of hiring platforms and communication tools may come in handy for efficient remote team management.

Besides the traditional job posting on job boards and research on LinkedIn and other social media, there are plenty of methods to find the needed tech talent. Choose the way that works well for you, handpick the best experts available on the market, and glue them all together into one team. Or find a partner that will help you hire a remote development team with team members who have work experience on similar projects. Below find the top ways to find a good fit.

1. Ask for a referral

Did you know that job seekers in the IT sector usually switch jobs once in 3-4 years? For this reason, asking your partners or colleagues for a referral is worth a try. Moreover, this way will help you to ensure the candidate’s quality. Furthermore, you can also bring your team managers on board to facilitate collaborative hiring. Collaborative hiring will help candidates know about the process flow at their specific department. Moreover, the team managers can list down the most suitable candidates to work on the specific role. 

2. Attend tech conferences

Looking for a Python/Java or PHP developer? Then you should attend and monitor events like PyCon, Framework days, or Java Day.

Networking at various hackathons, conferences, and tech events will help you establish many strategic partnerships, which may turn out to be very beneficial, especially in the long run.

Plus, it’s a good source of industry insights. Are React developers still in demand? What is a PHP developer’s salary? How to manage remote developers? Conferences and meetups can give you up-to-date info on all these questions.

3. Hire remote developers on freelance platforms

If you have a short-term task or need to quickly hire a developer to complete the required tasks, hiring a freelancer is a good option. Platforms like Upwork, TopTal, and Gun.io are currently the best places to hire remote freelance software developers.

4. Hire full-time contractors & dedicated teams online

YouTeam is a platform for extending your engineering team with vetted full-time contactors.

Our platform allows you to hire either some contractors with the required tech and soft skill set or a whole team of developers, including Project Manager and/or Product Owner, back-end and front-end developers, as well as UX/UI designers and QA engineers. Essential to mention, these specialists are employees of reliable development agencies from popular outsourcing destinations. It allows you to go through the onboarding process much easier and hire individual experts and the strategies they built together as one team.

The vetting process in YouTeam proceeds in several stages. In the beginning, we carefully check software development countries to find the best candidates. During the selection our team pre-interview each candidate to make sure they match the best.

It takes 48 hours to find the right candidate and send the best matches to the customer. If talking about the time, needed to proceed with the interview,  select the developer till the stage of signing the contract, the company needs two weeks.

There’s no need to handle all financial, administrative, and legal issues — they are already taken care of by a development agency with which you’re contracting. This collaboration model ensures that your remote employees work on your product alone and fully dedicate their time to the process.

5. Hire outsourced developers to build your product

If you already have a project roadmap, understand what you want to develop. In that case, whether it’s a website, a mobile app, or a SaaS product, you may need to hire an entire development team to work on your software development and implement your idea into reality from scratch.

Then it’s a great option to find a reliable software company specializing in your industry and the development area you need and outsource the development process to professionals. To find specialized software development companies, you can take a look at Clutch.

Step 2. Build a Consistent Remote Interview Process

1. Set goals & priorities

Make sure you get clear of why exactly you need distributed teams. Logically, in the job description, you should list which experts you need to build a remote team of developers from scratch. It is the basis your HR department or third-party marketplace will rely on to seek great candidates. Once you set precise requirements & expectations, you are all set up to make a new hire.

One of the biggest challenges in hiring remote developers is the screening process. Since people supposed to work remotely may be incapable of visiting your office, your interview abilities are minimal. Still, there is a sequence you can follow to determine whether the potential candidate is a good fit.

2. First screen

Zoom video calls seem the most effective than all other online interview techniques. They can give you a look and feel of the person’s values. Cultural fit is key to successful remote team management.

When someone applies for a remote role at your company and seems to be a solid match, it doesn’t mean that this person is a good fit as a remote worker. In most cases, a 30-minute face-to-face call with a hiring manager or team lead can help you understand how this new employee can add value to your existing team. You can also use this remote developer interview tool for skills assessment and the candidate’s readiness to work.

Another good step is to check whether the candidate has skills and traits that distinguish them from others. Find the list of such traits to check them below.

• Prioritizing. If working remotely, this skill will help a lot when the task is still unclear. Knowing how to focus on the main functions and paying less attention to some non-urgent ones will signify the right candidate.
• Communication skills. During the workflow, the developer will surely communicate with many people such as other developers and managers. Clear online communication is key to a successful development process with a remote team. Thus, it’s crucial to evaluate these skills in every remote employee during the interview.
• Self-discipline. This skill is essential for the developer who works remotely because working from home requires self-organization, as the success of remote work highly depends on the responsibility and time-management skills of remote employees.

In addition to it, the first chat is what shines a light on the remote candidate’s values. If people apply for a remote work position, they should be helpful, dedicated, and result-oriented. They also should be great at working and managing their priorities independently. In addition to it, they should be profound in writing. Hiring remote workers with such qualities will save you much time and hassle. Therefore, you will be able to find a good fit without needing a pesky recruiter.

And one more thing to pay attention to when you hire a remote development team is your candidate’s ability to teamwork.

3. Technical screen

Scheduling a tech interview is a must if you are looking for a technical remote position. Making a short (2-4 hours) exam will help you evaluate the depth of a candidate’s technical knowledge. Once the candidate passes the exam, you may assign a trial project. It will make it easier for you to test applicants on their potential output (ex., quality of the code, analytical skills, logical thinking, etc.).

Want to hire a remote development team? Why not give them a small team task to understand how well they complement each other?

For non-technical positions, you may find the hiring process more complex, especially if you make the selection remotely. If you are looking for a manager for your distributed team, it is essential to understand a person’s competencies. In addition to that, you’ll have to make sure that a candidate has a great sense of independence, collaboration, and brilliant communication skills.

4. Final interview

If both interviews were successful and you found the best talent to move forward, the next step is a final interview. It should cover the candidate’s salary expectations, working schedule, and all the benefits that come along with working at your company.

Make sure you leave an opportunity for them to ask any questions that may be lingering. Also, don’t forget to ask final questions yourself, as you need to ensure that a candidate is a perfect match for your distributed team. Here are examples of these interview questions:

• Have you ever worked in a remote company/team before?
• Do you have any concerns about working remotely?
• Are you able to track your KPIs on your own?
• How collaborative and team-oriented are you?
• Are you able to meet strict deadlines, not rescuing the work-life balance?

If answers to these and any other questions are what you expected to hear, it’s time to make an offer with which your candidate will be genuinely excited. For this reason, you should discuss all the salary questions in advance. Also, you should have a clear understanding of average software development salary rates in the engineer’s region.

If you are hesitant about whether a candidate is a good fit, you can ask other companies for feedback. It is an excellent opportunity to see how it feels to work with a person you are interviewing. No matter the position, if a candidate has made a considerable contribution to the overall team progress, you’re feeling much more confident about them and their ability to address any questions that may arise.

5. Job offer

Though all the efforts taken before are just about to pay off, it’s too early to pop a bottle of champagne. Once the final video meeting with your candidate happens, you should send over the official job offer along with a summary of the perks you offer. To hire a remote software engineer, you should discuss a contract with respective managers and your legal department. Then, you wait for approval from your candidate, and finally, welcome a new member to your team!

Once the signature is ready, you are all set to onboard a new remote employee. Arranging a short trip to your office is an excellent opportunity to help them further break the ice and make friends with new teammates. It is also a great way to learn its history and values.

It is good to have a person in your in-house team who will be able to help the remote developers to get along with the working environment, will onboard the developer not to feel superfluous among those who work on the project or in the company for a long time already. Having such a person is a good idea as the new developer will surely have many questions about the company, project or some working processes, so it will help them join the team easier.

You shouldn’t neglect his part when you hire a remote development team because it helps build a loyal relationship in a company.

New people are on board. Let them enjoy their stay!

Browse 500+ Dev Teams Available for Hire

Step 3. Be Aware of Traps to Avoid & Tips to Follow

1. Management

Dealing with a remote workforce may become a challenge, especially if you have no relevant management experience. We recommend assigning this role to a colleague or an outsourcing firm specialized in remote team collaboration that knows how to manage developers for more efficient collaboration.

If these methods are not what you want, you can always control remote teams yourself. However, getting used to this management style might take some time. Even so, tons of communication, management, and online collaboration tools are out there. They will come in handy to boost your management efficiency and increase overall team productivity.

2. Communication

Time difference and language barrier are the two most common problems for remote teams’ communication. Though English remains the most popular language for the IT industry, most remote team members are not native speakers.

For this reason, it is essential to outsource a manager who will supervise your distributed team abroad. It will resolve all your concerns and prevent any future problems from happening.

3. Trust

All fears of teams working remotely boil down to the questions of mutual trust. How you, as a manager, can be sure that an hour paid is an hour worked if you have no chance to meet your distributed teams regularly? Unfortunately, there’s no optimal way to answer this.

If a question of trust is among the trickiest for you, you may rely on using an outsourced marketplace that may handle all management problems themselves.

Final tips

No matter the duration and specifics of the project, choosing the right remote software development team may be overwhelming, especially for the first time. However, if you know how to organize the hiring process correctly, you can find a reliable software development partner that would contribute to your project’s success in the long run. Here are some final tips that will help you to hire remote development teams and manage them effectively:

• Build a collaborative working environment with an ability to monitor team performance on the fly.
• Schedule a set of review sessions with every new team member.
• Monitor both the overall performance of the team and the individual performance of each member.
• Make sure your team has a clear understanding of your strategy and knows how to make it work.
• Keep both short-term and long-term goals clear and properly prioritized.

Hopefully, you’ll find the recommendations listed above helpful and will be happy about working with distributed teams. However, you should never forget that hiring and working with remote teams is quite a challenge. If you struggle to find a perfect match for your development team — don’t hesitate to reach out for assistance.

YouTeam will always be there for you whenever you search for tech talent.