How to Find Programmers for Your Startup and a Company

Finding a programmer is an extremely challenging but crucial process, as the future software’s quality fully depends on the competence and experience of a chosen specialist. Needless to say, a prevailing part of total expenditures comprises development services. That is why the question “where can I find programmers for my project?” becomes highly relevant when it comes to product building. Therefore, if you want to create top-notch software, you should take the hiring process responsibly and search for programmers thoroughly. Especially with no tech background to verify them.

So how to find a good coder if you’re not a programmer? We created this guide to give you an idea of how to find programmers for your startup or company in 2023. What to pay attention to, where to find programmers for hire, what are the employing options, and how to verify developers’ skills, even if you’re not tech-savvy. Keep on reading!

Finding a programmer may be tricky, even if you’re a CTO of a big company. Not to mention non-tech people, especially startup owners. Many specialists make software for different platforms with different programming languages and frameworks. And before rushing and grabbing just any programmer, you must figure out what precisely you need.

Start with answering these helpful questions to find programmers for your startup who will meet your requirements:

• What’s your target audience?
• How will your app stand out from similar solutions?
• Who are your competitors? What unique features do they have?
• Are you going to earn money with your app? How?
• What features (payments, search, authorization via Twitter or Facebook) you want to implement?
• Do you want an app for iOS or Android?

Programmers work on ideas. They may understand your project but not be familiar with the market. So you have to find a programer and provide the market insights you’ve gathered.

At Cleveroad, we pick startups from an idea stage: do competitive research, and help with documentation and business planning. But having a solid idea is still required.

Depending on your business’s industry, goals, and your software’s aims, you should define what solutions to include in the product. The functionality and integrations vary due to the chosen business niche. To illustrate, if you want to build a marketplace solution, your product should essentially comprise payment gateway integration for purchases, chat to message sellers, and an opportunity to sign in with existing social media accounts for higher user convenience. Ideally, you should also come up with the following aspects to find a programmer for your project:

Ideally, you should also come up with the following aspects to find a programmer for your project:

• A list of core and unique features of the future app
• List of platforms to cover: mobile, desktop, wearables, TV
• UI design of the future app

Now let’s proceed to steps useful to understand how to find programmer.

After defining your project requirements, you should clarify them for the software vendor. The more details you provide, the more precise your view of the final product the hired specialist receives. Knowing your detailed requirements, you’ll quickly find programmers with competency in your specific domain and knowledge of development peculiarities of particular type’s projects.

Here are some tips on how to find the right developer specifically for your case:

No matter where you decide to find programmers for hire and which option you choose, freelance, in-house, or outsource, they’ll ask you to provide a list of app features.

You may split the list into two parts:

• Features to develop first (MVP) for reducing time to market
• Advanced features for winning more users in the future

MVP stands for "developing minimum viable product" It means you include only must-have features. For example, if you're making a video streaming app, you need a search screen, video playback page, a page on which users choose billing plans. Other features like the skip intro button or the coming soon page can be developed after gathering user feedback.

Our Business Analysts can also help you turn your list of features into a specification that contains every piece of information about the project.

Another determining factor of how to find programmers for a startup is choosing platforms your app will run on: web browser, mobile (iOS, Android), desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux), wearables (Wear OS, watchOS), or smart TV (Android TV, Tizen, WebOS)

And look up the technology. For example, if you’re making an Android app, find programmers that know Kotlin or Java. Want to cover iOS? look for Swift or Objective-C programmers.

Same thing with other platforms:

• Web frontend: AngularJS, React, Javascript, HTML5 & CSS
• Web backend: PHP, C#, NodeJS
• Desktop: Java, C#, Python, C++

To speed up the process, delegate the task of finding programmers for a startup to a software development company. Name the platforms, and the company will put together a team that will work on the project.

A little tip: if you want to save time and money (crucial for startups), go for cross-platform development. It’s beneficial to find programmers to hire who write code once, then apply it to multiple platforms—mobile, web, desktop.

Our developers use such a progressive framework as Flutter. What is flutter and why to use it? It works for a number of platforms, and Flutter-powered apps run as well as native apps do.

If you want to try Flutter, you need to find coders experienced in iOS/Android app development, Dart programming language, and Flutter SDK itself.

If there’s no user interface (UI) design, programmers have nothing to work on.

Design isn't a secondary thing for pretty looks. It's an overall style of the app, including color scheme, fonts, buttons, and widgets the user will use. UI/UX designers carefully pick those elements, and think about how they affect the perception of the product.

Often, they start with wireframes, prototypes, and mockups, schematic layouts of the future design. Then design the product screen by screen, showing what happens after a user clicks on each UI element.

Then design the product screen by screen, showing what happens after a user clicks on each UI element.

Finding a computer programmer and a designer is essential for this step, as they need to work together. Developers may ask them to make another set of icons, clarify colors or sizes, or add a missing placeholder. If you're going to work with a freelance designer, make sure they won't go on vacation after finishing your project design. Or you'll have to look for another one, and fast.

It’s much easier to work with an in-house or offshore team. In-staff designers may have finished working on your product, but they still support programmers, answer questions, and draw missing elements. Even if your offshore team's designer went on a vacation, their colleagues or a Team Leader wouldn't keep the developers waiting. The team structure’s benefit is the opportunity to build products with no delays, even in such cases.

Let’s now cover the ‘where to find a programmer’ options, and it’s time to expand the topic. There are three main hiring options:

• Freelancers: individual programmers (usually found on platforms like Upwork/Toptal)
• In-house developers: employees of your company that work from your office
• Outsourcing companies: a company you delegate the development to, located in another country

Let’s talk about each of them.

Need to find a computer programmer to make a landing page, quickly fix something in an existing app, or integrate PayPal payments? Freelancers are perfect for that.

The problems begin when you want to find coders for a startup and build a complex product from scratch with a team of freelancers. They don’t communicate with each other, so you’ll have to be one hell of a manager to keep everything under control.

Advantages of working with freelancers:

• Lower cost.You can rent programmer on freelance websites at the rate of $15-20/per hour.
• Good for simple one-time tasks. Freelancers can help with fixing bugs and minor updates.
• The large pool of specialists. Freelancing websites help you to find programmer of any expertise- from JavaScript to Scala.

Drawbacks of working with freelancers:

• Narrow specialization. You’ll need to hire at least two freelancers to cover iOS and Android, plus a UI/UX designer, when considering how to find a coder in freelance.
• No guarantees. If you find developers for startup in freelance, they may quit your project anytime with no verification of the end result.
• Time management complexities. If it’s 10AM where you live and 8PM where the freelancer lives.
• Interviewing issue. You need to be tech-savvy enough to verify their skills.

You should also carefully check resources where to find coders, when it comes to cooperation with freelancers.

With an in-house team, you find local programmers and gather a team that works from your office. It's the best option if there are years of work ahead and you want to keep everything under control.

But finding programmers and gathering such a team brings a row of drawbacks, too, especially in terms of costs. There are some extra expenditures that this option essentially comprises, so the price for such services sometimes goes through the ceiling. First, you have to not only find programmer for startup, but a bunch of other specialists (UI designer, QA, DevOps) interview, and train them, which is extremely time-consuming.

Next, you pay for the office rent, furniture, equipment, taxes, insurance, and any repairs or maintenance, not to mention sick leaves and vacations. It costs a lot if you live in the US or Canada.

Advantages of assembling an in-house team:

• Cultural fit. In-house developers tend to pay more attention to the specific needs of the company.
• Face-to-face communication. You and your team have the same working hours and work from one office.
• Quick changes. It's faster to change something in a project or check an idea with programmers.

Disadvantages:

• Cost and time. You not only spend time to find a programmer for startup near you but have to pay a competitive salary to programmers and cover expenses like rent, taxes, software, and hardware.
• Staff turnover. Your employees may quit, and finding a replacement will take time.
• Lack of local talents. It may be tough to find a programmer for your project if you’re living in a small town.

Basically, outsourcing means you’re delegating the development of your software to a company located in another country. For example, it’s when you live in the US but find programmers for startups that live in Germany, Poland, or Estonia. With such a tech vendor, you are free of worries associated with how to find a computer programmer for a startup.

Pros of working with an outsourcing company:

• Get a full team right away. No need to puzzle over the question “how do I find a programmer?”, as the full team is ready for cooperation, including all specialists, from UI/UX designers to QA testers and DevOps.
• Start at any stage. With the ready-made specification, wireframes, or just an idea.
• Everything is formalized. Companies prepare documentation, sign a contract, and constantly approve the work with you.
• Organized development process, controlled by a Project Manager that reports the progress to the client.
• Tech specialists with different skills and technologies: iOS, Android, Flutter, frontend, backend.

Cons:

• More expensive compared to freelance developers (cheaper than in-house development, though).
• Cultural gap. True for some east companies from India or Asia.
• Slower communication compared to an in-house team (need to make an individual schedule of meetings).

Yet, due to the high accessibility, brand-new technologies, and highly-developed communication skills, these obstacles can easily be overcome, making outsourcing companies the most cost-efficient and beneficial option.

Answering how to find a computer programmer, the final choice always depends on the type of product you're making. Want to make a couple of changes to an existing app? Find a programmer that works as a freelancer. Have enough resources to cover an in-house team and project that requires 24/7 monitoring? Go for in-house development. And if you want to combine affordable cost with good quality work and a team provided right away, outsourcing development is the best option.

Here are the top 10 resources to find programmers for project and check their rates, reviews, and expertise:

• Clutch
• GoodFirms
• ITFirms
• LinkedIn
• Indeed
• Glassdoor
• Upwork
• Youteam
• Dice

Depending on the scale and complexity of your project, you will need to search for a programmer with a certain expertise level. The interviewing process may differ for developers of various competence levels due to the tasks they fulfill. Let’s begin with classifying developers by their expertise and experience:

• Junior developers. They can efficiently fix moderate bugs, operate the admin panel and its tools, and work with the backend server to define and get rid of existing issues. Yet, their code should be thoroughly checked.
• Middle developers. These specialists have already obtained experience in a couple of projects and can work both alone and in teams. Their capabilities include splitting wide-scale tasks into narrow sub-tasks, making up testing schedules, detecting major bugs in code, and checking script thoroughly. They periodically require mentoring as well.
• Senior developers. Those are highly competent experts able to cope with the tasks of any difficulty, manage and check the work of less experienced teammates, and find the most efficient way to obtain the final project aim.

However, the professional and productive programmer of any expertise level has to possess certain personal and professional skills. Note that if you are looking for a programmer on freelance resources or to gather in-house employees, this task falls on your shoulders.

Let’s divide the interview process into two sections:

• Checking hard skills: related to specific technical knowledge (programming languages, frameworks)
• Checking soft skills: personality traits (communication, time management)

Both are important if you want to find programmers that’ll finish the work properly.

As mentioned above, these skills include personal traits that define how a person copes with a heavy workload, manages time and task fulfillment, and with which approach. Furthermore, they determine how the potential employee will operate in a team environment. Here are some questions worth asking to find the programmer with well-developed soft skills:

• How do you change your schedule when something unplanned happens?
• How do you prioritize your work if you have several pending deadlines?
• How do you keep up the motivation when working on a project you have no interest in?
• Do you have multitasking skills?
• What are your stress management techniques?

One more thing: if you are looking for programmer who works as a freelancer, check what previous clients say about this specialist. Often, clients pay more attention to a person's soft skills, such as cooperation or response time.

You may check these details in the review section on the programmer’s page. Or contact their clients and talk to them directly.

Hard skills are indispensable in the challenge of how to find coders for your startup and depend on the type of programmer you want to hire. They refer to the level of professional competence and define what technical tasks an expert can fulfill. iOS, Android, frontend, backend, or Flutter, all these programmers need different skills.

We’ve already described programmers’ hard skills according to their specialization:

• Hard skills of Node.js programmers
• Hard skills of JavaScript programmers
• Hire Angular.js developer
• Frontend programmers
• Android developers for hire
• iOS app developer for hire
• Flutter developers

Most companies have a CTO whose job is to find a programmer and evaluate their tech skills. But not all startups do.

There are a few tips to find programmers for project by evaluating the tech skills of a programmer, even if you have little to no tech background.

1. Ask a programmer to help you

How to find a programmer for the startup? The best way is to get help from someone who knows a great deal of programming and has good people skills. It may be a former colleague or a good friend of yours.

2. Download the apps they've made

Most software development companies have a portfolio of apps on their website. When looking for programmers, you should go through it, check if there are products similar to what you want to make, and download a couple of apps on App Store or Google Play to see how they work.

3. Ask about additional services

In addition to solid development, ask whether your tech partner ensures quality testing, code reviews, security protocols, and DevOps services.

4. Check their programming portfolio on GitHub

Check GitHub; it also offers programmers for hire online. In addition, GitHub exposes all the git commit history, and it's a good sign if your candidate has a project they grow over time. Rather than a single commit with a "here's the code" message.

We’ve also prepared a few lists of interview questions you may use to find a programmer with excellent hard skills:

• Flutter interview questions
• JavaScript interview questions (with answers)
• Frontend interview questions (+answers)
• Node.js interview questions (+answers)
• Angular questions (+answers)

Again, if you inquire how to find programmers for your startup with no programming experience, it's better to ask more experienced developers to watch over the interviewing process.

Cleveroad is an outsourcing software development company with more than 10 years of experience, during which we’ve successfully accomplished 170+ successful projects. We offer a broad spectrum of product-building opportunities.

Our programmers are qualified professionals in their field, proficient in a wide range of languages and technologies. Here you can find specialists to work on your iOS, Android, or cross-platform solutions, as well as web applications built with modern technologies and approaches.

We also have practical experience in developing blockchain-based projects, including NFT, AR/AI apps, and cloud- and IoT-based solutions. With our help, you will be able to turn your app idea into reality. Our team is always ready to go beyond the ordinary and create something truly unique.

Besides, we work on projects of any size and complexity, so you can find programmers for a startup or for expanding an already existing app with one of our three adjustable cooperation models:

• Dedicated Team, a partnership model implying an agreement between the customer and software vendor, who provides software development experts to the client on long term conditions.
• Fixed price, by which the customer pays a fixed amount of money for a defined scope of work. The total cost is known before the development flow begins, with no extra expenditures required.
• Time & material, highly adaptive cooperation model which is suitable when the amount of work and requirements are undefined and may change during the product creation. As a result, a client pays for the effort and time spent on the project fulfillment.

Suppose you're starting out just from an idea. In that case, we have a bunch of additional services like SWOT analysis, UX prototyping, helping with a list of MVP features, and preparing project specifications. In addition, we provide Flutter development services for those who want to cover two platforms (iOS+Android) for the price of one.

The best way to get acquainted with a company is to look through their portfolio.

Here are some of our recent projects:

• Streaming. Video-on-demand streaming platform to purchase or rent high-quality movies and TV series on a pay-per-view basis;
• Logistics. Transportation Management System (TMS) with an automated route planning software to optimize all the stages of the supply chain in the company;
• Healthcare.Iot-based system for monitoring EKG and blood oxygen level that allows users to review these indicators on phones as well as to sell gadgets online;
• Education. Multi-functional digital educational platform for DJs comprising a range of courses and creating a DJ community
• NFT. A video-on-demand solution uniting NFT artists, fans, and collectors together