Finding the Needle in the Haystack: Your Search for Developer Skills

So hiring - and retaining - software developers today requires thinking outside of the box and re-working all your hiring strategies. It takes creativity just to find candidates, let alone hire them. And even then there's no guarantee they'll stay long.

Stack Overflow's conducted one of the most comprehensive developer surveys and recently released the results that revealed some interesting info regarding where developers work, what they build, who they are what they feel are important in their careers. This might just be the info you need to help you understand how to approach your talent search for those purple squirrels and rainbow unicorns in the development industry.

Multiple Languages

More and more developers are gravitating towards careers where they are simultaneously working on 5 to 6 programming languages or frameworks at a time. Traditionally developers like to specialize in one or two main programming languages but as technology is advancing and requiring more diverse skills developers are also investing in their knowledge and working on becoming experts in multiple programming languages.

Management Support

Developers identify this as one of the key influencers of their work environment. Unrealistic expectations and unspecific requirements are some of the most common workplace gripes. It however goes even further than that as a need for mutual respect between management and employees is seen as key. Developers want to know that if they build something cool that management can do their part in moving things forward in the right direction.

Challenging Projects and Current Technology

Most developers would tell you that they just want the opportunity to work on cutting-edge technology. By nature, good developers are always looking to improve their skills and learn new things. They want to be empowered to do so and pitch their ideas on how things can be done better. This is important from a workplace environment and will determine whether developers stay or go to your company.

Red Tape and Bureaucracy 

Overall, there's a strong correlation between job satisfaction and pushing code into production. 65% of developers who never check in code are satisfied at their jobs vs. 77% satisfaction rate among developers who commit code multiple times per day. The bottom line, developers want to do what they love and that is ultimately code! 

They don’t want to have to play the political game or get bogged down by months of red tape to write code and implement it. This requires management to take proactive steps in terms of processes that will make the work environment productive for your development team without adding unnecessary administrative challenges.

The industry is changing fast as technology develops at a rapid pace every single day. It is clear why competition for developers has never been higher, in part because there is increased demand from nearly every industry, not just traditional software businesses. But it also makes it a lot more difficult to recruit the right talent that is fundamental for the success of your business.

Talk about finding a needle in the haystack. Communicate Recruitment has never backed down from a challenge. We have years of experience in the IT recruitment industry and are connected to some of the top Engineers, Experts, Hackers, Ninja it doesn’t matter what they call themselves we can find them. If you need assistance with finding the right talent for your team, contact us today