Learn how to hire a developer for your business website and the essential things to consider to find the best team of developers for you.
The most crucial part of building an app is choosing the right team of developers for your business website. According to a Developer Nation report, at the start of 2021, there were 24.3 million active developers globally. How do you find the right website developer for your business amidst so many? What and what should you look out for? How do you even know which developer is right for you? These and more are some of the questions we will answer in this guide. In this article, you will find a step-by-step guide on how to hire a website developer for your project.
From specifying your business, selecting the skills you need, and more, we look at six of the most crucial steps for how to hire a website developer that will suit any business or project.
Step 1: Specify your business challenges
All web development projects are different, but knowing your project size and goals, gives you clear guidance on which web developers will best suit your project. It’s important to decide what web development project you need a developer for at this initial stage.
Some questions to help you clarify what to take into consideration and make decisions on what you need include;
- Are you building from scratch or integrating additional features into an existing website?
- Is your project a simple website, or do you need complex features?
- What kind of features are essential to your site? E.g., Contact form, CTA buttons, templates, and so on.
- Is it a medium or a Large web project?
Medium web projects include the development of websites that require the integration of third-party services such as CRM, CMS, databases, chatbots, APIs, and others.
Large-sized web project examples include video-sharing social media apps like Tiktok. These require complex features and sophisticated technologies, and integration with cloud hosting servers to store all their user data.
Another important process at this step is to define your specific business challenges. What’s the reason you need to hire a web developer? The major needs of customers looking for a web developer usually are:
- To build a project from scratch.
- Extend your in-house team with an extra specialist to help with an ongoing project.
- To bring in technology that your in-house dev team has little or no experience with.
Step 2: Decide on the level of developer skill you need
There are three types of web developers. Front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers. What is the difference between them?
Front-end developers code the front of your site, i.e., the part the users interact with. You need them for the part of your website that the user interacts with. They code and create the website layout, color scheme, and other visual elements. They are different from UI/UX designers from Web developers because they turn the design into fully functional websites using HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, Node.JS, ASP.NET, React.JS, Angular 8, Vue, and other technologies.
Back-end developers are responsible for website structure, called the server side. It’s not usually visible to the user, but it regulates how your website works, like your website’s speed, third-party services integration, and other technical features. Back-end usually needs computer languages like PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, and databases, including MongoDB, SQL – MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and others.
Full-stack developers are experienced in developing both the front and back end of websites. Such specialists are becoming popular among start-ups that have limited resources. While full-stack developers have a higher hourly rate than other kinds of developers, it may be more economical to work with them than hiring both front and back-end developers.
Step 3: Finding necessary specialists
Before you hire a website developer, consider that they will become a part of your business for several years, providing your project with ongoing technical support and implementing further website improvements. Thus, you’ll need to hire carefully.
But where to find a web developer?
To hire a freelancer, check freelance jobs marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, Toptal, PeoplePerHour, 99designs, LinkedIn, Behance, etc.
But if you’re hiring a web development team, check some of the websites above, as well as SkillSoniq, GitHub Jobs, Stack Overflow, Hired, Dice, Clutch, and Software World. Other places include tech blogs (like the one you are reading). Often they contain interesting info as well as developer teams.
Step 4: Check the web development team’s expertise
Before hiring web developers, you evaluate the experience of the web development team and find out whether they can handle your project. One way to do this is to check your team’s portfolio to learn more about previous projects. Or you can check sites like Linkedin, Behance, and Dribble networks for previous works. If the company’s expertise satisfies your business needs, you can contact the team and start discussing your project.
It’s also crucial to evaluate the soft skills of the web developers you’ll be hiring. Skills such as communication, teamwork, proactiveness, helpfulness, and approachability are essential skills that help the developer work well with others on the team. Thus, the developer’s skills in building a rapport with others result in a more harmonious working relationship with other members of your team and consequently increase productivity.
A good way to validate the soft skills of web developers is to conduct a video interview with a developer or ask one to make a video and talk about himself or explain how to deal with a complex technical task.
Step 5: Select a working model
Depending on the complexity and scope of your web development project, you may choose among the following models of cooperation:
The project-based model is popular among start-ups or well-established businesses for accomplishing small web development projects. It comes with a predefined scope of work and established timeframes. In this model, all responsibilities are on the web development team.
The Dedicated Team business model works well if you need to add complex functions to your websites, such as cloud storage integration or AI Chabot development. Still, you want to save time and costs on hiring in-house specialists. You could control the project or leave the decision-making to your dedicated web development team. Here, the responsibilities of the project’s success depend on the project management’s process side.
Outstaff or Extended team model is your best option for developing big projects economically within budget. You’ll need an in-house CTO and project manager since, with this model, you are responsible for assigning tasks, progress management, and leading web developers from the technical management side. In this business model, all responsibility, validation, and control are the customers.
Step 6: Choose a payment model
When you hire a website developer or web development team, you will need to decide with them how they get paid. For outstaff and Dedicated team working models, a salary will be preferred.
However, for a project-based working model, you could choose the fixed price-paying model, which is best for web projects with a clear scope of work and time frame.
Or there is the Pay-as-You-Go, which is used when the scope of work, as well as the time frame of a project, is not easy to estimate. The developer is paid an hourly rate based on time spent.
Conclusion
Whether you need to make small changes to your website, build a web app, or complete a social network with cloud storage and many third-party integrations, you can easily find a web developer for hire.
By following our guide on how to find a web developer, you can not only select the perfect candidate for your project but also choose the best working and paying models.
We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for you to hire a website developer. But it can be a bit of a hassle putting it into action. Get in touch with Appsolutions today to find out how we can help your business by ensuring you have a smooth and seamless experience in hiring a website developer.