Hiring your tech team is one of the most important tasks a founders of tech companies need to accomplish. Whether you are a technical founder or not, you will need to attract and recruit top tech talent to build your software product. This article shares tips for sourcing great candidates and hiring your startup's tech team from scratch.
What tech talent do you need?
The type and number of coding languages you expect your programmers to know and the location you expect them to be will determine the size and availability of the talent pool. Skillsets and locations will also influence your recruiting strategy. Once you have answered these questions, identify the number of tech jobs you'll need to advertise and the required candidate experience you'll need for your tech team based on the stage of your company and the complexity of your product.
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How to find top tech talent?
As a founder building your tech team from scratch, you can choose to become a hiring manager or work with recruitment agencies. Working with recruitment agencies can help you build a team quickly but at a cost. However, there is always a risk that they won't always understand the specific software skills and requirements you are looking for unless they are specialised. Moreover, when looking for the best talent, it needs to be calibrated for your company as culture fit is more important than skillsets.
If you are hiring without an agency, you can publish job posts on LinkedIn, Stack Overflow or on in specialised social media groups. A clear job description and elements which describe your employer brand will help you attract qualified candidates looking for a new job. listing all your open positions at the same time will also give a sense to applicants that your company is growing quickly.
What is the recruitment process for recruiting tech talent?
The hiring process for tech candidates is very similar as for any other roles. You should review the resumes of the job seekers and filter down the CVs which meet your requirements. You can then invite these potential candidates for an interview which will determine if their goals, motivations for joining and personality fit with your company. This will help determine the right candidates which should be invited to a coding exercise which should be timed just like a hackathon. You should then review the code of the applicants and look for key elements such as whether the code first of all works and if they have implemented good coding practices. If they pass the test you can consider seeking referrals or alternatively you can introduce them to the team members they will be working with if you are likely to make them a job offer.
How to hire tech talent?
Hiring tech talent requires using legal documents just like with any other role. You can make a formal offer of employment to successful candidates who have completed the interview process and follow up with an employment contract if they accept it. Contracts for software developers should include provisions around the use of open source software and intellectual property in order to protect the employer. New hires should also receive company policy documents such as a staff handbook and other policies which your future clients will expect you to have. To create all these documents in minutes and offer a professional contracting experience to your future software engineers, consider using Legislate. Legislate is an end-to-end contract management platform for small businesses.
About Legislate
Legislate is a contracting platform where business owners can create contracts to help grow and develop their business. Legislate's employment offer letters and contracts are key in protecting your IP and Legislate's NDAs are crucial to ensure you can have conversations and partnerships to help develop your business and brand. Book a demo or sign up today to put the confidence back into contracting.
The opinions on this page are for general information purposes only and do not constitute legal advice on which you should rely.