How to Hire Remote Developers? A Complete Guide

Whether it is web development, mobile app development, or software development, hiring remote developers can prove to be advantageous in most cases. Low cost and access to top talent are the two main reasons why most businesses today prefer to outsource their development work to remote developers from top outsourcing service providing companies.

Here is a complete guide for businesses on how to hire remote developers for your project that takes them through journey of hiring developers for their project.

The brutal process of remote developers hiring is demystified in this guide that businesses can even consider as their navigation manual where everything is explained fairly in detail. The attempt of explaining everything thoroughly has extended this guide to more than 3000 words. If you want shorter version of this guide, send an email at [email protected].

Who is a Remote Developer?

The remote developer’s definition can contain different variants. The developers who are working as a freelancer are one type of remote experts. The company employees working remotely are remote workers. And the third one which we are going to look into in this blog is remote specialists who are hired by businesses to work dedicatedly on their business-specific requirements from the software development company.

Remote experts are essentially employees of IT companies that work for businesses virtually as full-time employees from a remote location. The remote development experts may be located anywhere across the globe but will work and communicate with the business clients for a pre-defined time according to their selected hiring model with the company.

This concept gained traction after the latest pandemic as businesses don’t have any other option other than hiring team of remote developers to work collaboratively with the in-house team remotely to meet their project needs. Now, it has become a new norm in the IT industry as it’s bringing a plethora of benefits to both- IT companies and businesses.

Remote specialists are a kind of extension to your in-house team and they work with them in tandem on your project requirement. Hiring them for the full project or the part of the project is up to the requirement and team size you have at your premises.

 Advantages of Hiring Remote Developers

If you have a question when to hire remote developers? Then we have the answer for you. If you want the below-mentioned benefits, then hiring remote development specialist is the way to go.

When we think about the benefits of hiring team of remote developers, the first thing that comes to mind is that you get access to more talent. Apart from this advantage, there are many more benefits that you can get by hiring remote team of developers. We have outlined the most important advantages of hiring dedicated remote development experts.

Save costs

By choosing to hire dedicated remote specialists, you can save on different types of costs that are incurred while hiring in-house developers. When you hire in-house developers, you have to provide them with a desk to sit on, a computer/laptop to work, health and medical benefits, leaves, and other amenities.

These expenses are over and above the salary that you need to pay to the in-house developers. When you hire remote developers from a top offshore IT outsourcing company, you can easily save these costs.

Apart from saving on operational expenses, you can also save on the hiring costs of dedicated developers. This is because, with remote specialists, you can hire low-cost developer talent from all across the globe.

Stay updated with the latest technologies

The in-house developers are normally too busy to learn new technologies. For instance, if you have a developer proficient in Objective C, then you will be in a fix if you want to develop a solution using React Native or Flutter.

When hiring remote development specialists, you gain access to talented developers who are updated with the latest technologies, frameworks, and programming languages. In the earlier example, you could just hire a remote team of react native developers or Flutter Developers and start working on the project.

Better productivity

Skilled remote developers provide more productivity. This is because, unlike your in-house developers, the payment of the full-time remote developers for hire depends on the delivery of the project. Hence it is in their best interest if they deliver the project quickly.

Global talent pool accessibility

With the remote hiring model, you, as an entrepreneur, get access to a global talent pool. Instead of being limited by the developers residing in your vicinity, you can unlock access to elite developers across the globe and choose to hire the best for your project. There are effective communication tools available today that simplify the collaboration between in-house and hired remote developer teams.

Busting the Myths of Hiring Remote Developers

When hiring remote specialists, you will have to face many myths. These myths act as a mental roadblock for businesses that want to hire dedicated developers in remote mode. Let’s dispel some of the most popular myths before you begin the process of hiring developers who can work from remote locations.

Hiring remote developers is not productive

Many people think that it is difficult to achieve high productivity with remote development.

Understand that you need to build a detailed plan of action for your remote experts. If you fail to build such a plan, then even your team of in-house developers won’t be able to work properly.

Hiring remote experts is not good for team spirit

Many businesses have this notion that hiring developers to work for you from remote locations poses a threat to the team spirit of the organization. On the contrary, you will find that professional remote developers easily mingle with your work culture. This is because, normally, proficient remote experts have experience working in different organizational cultures.

You can promote transparency between your in-house and dedicated remote developers hired to ensure good team spirit between the two teams.

Hiring remote developers is not good for security

This is one of the most common myths prevalent regarding full-time remote developers hiring for development. Many people think that it is not safe to share your ideas or data with remote specialists. You can sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) before you work with your remote specialists to ensure your data is safe.

You can go a step further and check the data security mechanisms of your remote development team. For instance, ask whether remote development experts you like to hire take security measures like a private virtual network, two-factor authentication, and encryption.

Hiring remote development specialists leads to poor communication

Many businesses have this misconception that remote development leads to poor communication. This misconception arises from the fact that many businesses prefer hiring developers from developing nations. Now sometimes, it may happen that there are huge timezone differences between you and the developers that you hire.

This can lead to miscommunication if not handled properly. Such communication issues can be easily avoided using modern collaboration tools.

Challenges You Can Face when hiring offshore Remote Developers team

While hiring offshore developers has a wide array of benefits, you might need to also face several challenges in the process. Let us understand the most prominent challenges in brief so that you can handle them like a pro.

Hiring quality developers

When you choose to hire team of remote developers to work remotely, you can get overwhelmed by the sea of options available. When you post your requirement for the team of remote developers to work dedicatedly, you may get flooded with inquiries. The task of sorting quality developers from the huge sea of options available to hire can prove to be a tedious one.

Solution:

Hire dedicated remote developers team only from a reputed software development company to ensure that you gain access to top-notch remote developer talent.

Linguistic obstacle

Language barriers can prove to be a big obstacle in hiring a team of remote developers. If you are from an English-speaking country, then you cannot work with remote software developers who understand only French or Spanish.

Solution:

Even when you hire non-native English speakers as your full-time remote developers, ensure that their English speaking skills are up to the mark. Even small communication errors can cost you hundreds of dollars. This is why it is essential to hire remote development companies that have developers with decent English-speaking skills.

Service quality remains questionable

Hiring remote developers from other countries involves the risks of getting quality service as expected. When unqualified developers are hired just for the sake of lower cost, it put the complete development at stake as they don’t have the relevant expertise and experience that’s needed for the project development.

Solution:

One can avoid this problem by screening the developers individually for testing their coding and niche technical capabilities before signing the contract. Also, businesses can ask for portfolios to know if they are a perfect fit or not for their industry.

Unexpected cost overruns

When the development firm provides a team of inexperienced developers to work on your project, the lack of specialists in the team leads to an extended timeline, budget overrun, and raise other issues. This costly mistake not only makes the development an expensive affair. Instead, ruins the project.

Solution:

Such a situation is prevented with a team of experienced players on the floor that ensures timely and quality deliverables.

Communicate expectations clearly

Not communicating the business project needs and expectations clearly while hiring the developers to work for you remotely and signing the contract results in getting the project developed that’s completely different from what is expected.

Solution:

Such expectations mismatch situations and consequences are avoided by communicating the requirements vividly. Also, getting the blueprint developed or deliverables approved by you during the project development ensures that both are on the same page.

Time Zone differences

When hiring a remote team from different corners of the world definitely pop-up the time zone difference issues. The time zone differences make communication, meetings, and issue resolution across the in-house and remote teams a hard nut to crack in as everyone won’t be available at the same time. The lack of collaborative teamwork makes remote development a struggle.

Solution:

The team can take this to their advantage. The remote team can communicate and collaborate during time zone overlaps. When an issue is raised by one team member when their work schedule is about to finish, it is resolved by another team member who is about to start their work according to their time zone.

All You Need To Know About How To Hire Remote Developers

Hiring remote developers team can seem to be an uphill task. You can simplify this uphill task by following a framework to help you understand how to hire remote developers. First, we will start with the questions that you need to answer before you hire experienced remote developers team.

Answers to know before hiring team of remote developers

This is a bonus step we have included for your convenience since it helps in understanding and defining your requirements better.  To understand how to hire remote developers and find & employ the best here are a few questions that you should ask yourself before you hire remote specialists for your project requirement.

Here are a few questions that you should ask yourself before you hire remote developers for your project requirement.

• Is the project a long-term project or a short-term one?
• Do you have an in-house project manager, or will you require one?
• Do you want to hire dedicated remote developers who will work only on your project?
• Do you have any sensitive data that needs to be protected?
• What will be the budget?
• What would you like to build – An MVP or Full-Fledge Product?
• Will your in-house team be able to work with remote developers?
• What can be a potential hindrance to your project?
• Which communication channel or tool is best suitable for your and your team?

After getting the answers that you require, it’s time to follow a step-by-step process of hiring full-time remote developers for your project.

Define your requirements

The first step in the process of hiring a team of remote developers from a leading offshore development company is to define your project requirements clearly. Be clear about your product’s core features. You should also have clarity regarding the kind of targeted users who shall use the product after its launch. That’s where creating a request for proposal documentation is a great help.

The RFP documentation provides all the project requirements-related details thoroughly and accurately, which ensures the process of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) goes as planned. It also helps in knowing the expertise and experience that’s required in a development team for the set of technologies to be used in the development of the project.

Once you have defined your requirements with RFP documentation, you will find it easy to figure out the type of dedicated remote development specialists that you need to hire and get the product that’s up to the mark.

Find and Shortlist candidates

Once your requirements are defined, the next step is to find the right team for development and shortlist the candidates to hire.

When you search on the internet, you can find the best offshore IT outsourcing companies that will have teams of remote developers. Websites such as Clutch.co, TopDevelopers.co, and Goodfirms.co are good resources you can use to find top outsourcing companies providing remote developers for hire.

The benefit of working with a remote development solution provider is that they have a ready talent pool that can be leveraged right away. There are multiple options available to hire remote development team, Hence you should go shortlisting the right developers. Ask for quotations to hire remote developer for your business requirement, have meetings with them, ask for their prior client detail, check their portfolio, check their experience working with your business industry, and then shortlist the ideal candidates.

Start screening

Start the screening process once you have shortlisted the potential companies with remote development team you want to work with. If you have a technical team member, then you can ask technical questions before you hire the remote development team.

A nice way to assess the technical skills of the shortlisted team of remote developers is to take a sample test to evaluate their practical skills. You can take the help of a few digital platforms that take sample programming tests.

These platforms allow developers to work on different frameworks and libraries. Just the way they work on actual projects. Apart from technical skills, you should also assess the soft skills of remote specialists before hiring as it plays a vital role in bringing success to the project. Effective communication, emotional intelligence, problem-solving nature, and active participation in group discussions add value to the project and reduce conflicts. Assess the following soft skills in the remote developer that reflect in project progress in a positive way.

• Is the developer working remotely on your project a team player with effective communication skills?
• Is the remote developer flexible enough to adapt latest technologies and trends?
• Is the remote developer you want to hire open to new ideas and ready to innovate?
• Is the remote developer good at time management to complete priority tasks and meet deadlines?
• Does the remote developer have good command over programming languages and frameworks?
• Does the remote developer show accountability for the project assigned?
• Does the remote developer have the empathy and emotional intelligence to handle contingencies patiently and smartly?
• Does the remote developer you selected has shown the ability to solve the problem or what’s the problem-solving approach of the developer?

These are the questions that will help you assess the soft skills as well as technical skills of the remote developer that you have shortlisted as probable candidate to hire.

Finalizing the budget required for project

Not all entrepreneurs are full of pockets that can spend haphazardly on project development. Also, realizing business success through product development requires keeping the business ROI quotient on the higher side. You should ask about the variation in developers’ rates based on their skills and experience with your outsourcing service-providing partner.

The hourly rate of senior developers is higher as opposed to junior developers. Get clear with the number of junior developers, senior developers, technology specialists, project managers, and QA & testers assigned for the project along with their rates.

Taking a step ahead, when the agile methodology is embraced for project development, the project is built and delivered to the client in parts. The client can prefer to pay the development cost in parts at regular intervals as the project sprints are approved. Also, the development price gets uplifted when new additions are brought to the project that were not defined in the scope initially at the time when RFP documents were sent.

Sign the documents

Once you have finalized the remote developers to hire from the offshore development service providers with whom you want to work, the next step is to sign the necessary documents. The first and most important document that you need to sign is the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement).

This is a document that prevents developers working for you remotely from disclosing any sensitive information related to your project to outsiders. By signing the NDA, you will safeguard your data to an extent. The pricing structure, the schedule of delivery, and the maintenance contract are some other documents that you need to sign with your hired remote team. These document signing zeroes down the possibilities of the conflicts raised at the end of the development regarding scope creep, delayed timeline, and extended budget.

In case, you are hiring from the ones that provide dedicated remote experts, then you need to just sign a contract, and you are ready to go.

Why is hiring remote developers from an IT company better than Freelancers?

Collaboration with freelancers brings short-term benefits such as time-savvy, cost-effectiveness, high adaptability, and a huge talent pool to the table. However, there are a lot of disadvantages associated that make the businesses feel at the later stage that this is not exactly what they need. Here’s the overview of all the reasons that assures you that the decision to hire remote developer from one of the top IT companies is better than hiring a freelancer. Let’s dive in!

Quality and productivity

Developers working remotely from IT companies work on the project after understanding the project’s needs and preferences. They view their success in the project’s success that’s why they work side by side with businesses. It ensures they work to the notch to deliver quality results.

Security

The developers working remotely from the company make it easier for you to sign an agreement to keep the project idea confidential. The hired developers always stand up to expectations because the commitment to work and obligations are already signed and the reputation of the firm is on the line as well.

Availability

Remote developers from the vendor can work as your full-time employees as per your selected hiring model which helps you get desired flexibility despite having time zone differences. The developers readily work according to your schedule for collaborative efforts and fruitful results.

Long-lasting relationship building

The company has a reputation in the market so they make developers work in a way that nurtures the relationship with the business client. The company is here to stay, so they ensure the remote developers that you hire work dedicatedly in the same way.

Achieving satisfaction

The remote developers work on the project that is provided by the company rather than juggling multiple projects as freelancers. The balance helps them to work with great focus and priority for the same project to deliver satisfactory results to the client.

Wrap up

Hiring remote experts can prove to be an overwhelming task. You can make this task simpler by choosing a well-thought-out hiring process. An easy way to hire developers is to select a professional offshore IT outsourcing company that provides remote developers for hire. You will get readily available top-tier remote developers who can immediately start working on your project.

Frequently Asked Questions Before Hiring Remote Developers

Why hire remote developers?

Flexibility, productivity, adaptability, global talent pool, and reduced development cost makes hiring remote developer a good option.

How to hire remote developers?

Hiring remote developers is a step-by-step process that involves:

• Define your requirements
• Find and Shortlist candidates
• Start screening
• Finalizing the budget required for the project
• Sign the documents

You can learn about it in detail above.

Which country should I prefer for remote developer hiring and why?

With multiple project development outsourcing destinations such as the USA, Australia, India, England, and Ukraine available, you can go ahead with any of these locations to start with. At all these locations you can easily find the best service providers to hire for your project development and also ensure you a high-quality service, without delayed timeline, and with cost-effective developers rates.

Is hiring remote developers- a cheaper or more expensive affair?

Hiring remote developers is a cost-effective endeavor as it saves you from infrastructure setup, buying hardware and software licenses, paying wages and other benefits to employees, taxes, and a lot more.