Hire a Software Development Team (Who Will Grow With You)

Choosing the right software development team is one of the most crucial decisions you’ll make for the success of your business. A good software development team combines people with a range of skills and personalities who collaborate to produce results that exceed the sum of their individual contributions. However, with three out of four IT teams facing critical skills gaps and over half with open positions, finding a competent developer can itself be a challenge, let alone finding one with the right combination of tech and soft skills for your specific team needs.

In an agile environment, hard skills aren’t enough. If you’re putting together an adaptable, engaged, cross-functional team that runs on communication and feedback, soft skills are just as important as knowing a specific tech stack, if not more so.

Given the current tech skills gap, how can you go about accomplishing this herculean task without an unlimited budget or a magic wand? You need to be as adaptable as the developers you’re seeking. Think beyond traditional job boards and university recruiting events. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Talent as a Service (TaaS)

The phenomenal success of the software as a service (SaaS) model has conditioned businesses and individuals to expect to pay for what they need when they need it. This model allows users to conserve their resources by only paying for what they use. The TaaS model extends this concept to hiring tech talent.

With TaaS, the burden of recruiting, hiring, and training tech talent is eliminated. The company providing the talent handles all of that and works to ensure the developers are job-ready on day one. There are two common models for TaaS. The first is per project. The company provides the talent you need for a specific project. This model works well for short-term projects or when augmenting your team with extra temporary help.

The second model is subscription-based. You pay a monthly fee to access talent on an as-needed basis. This option may work well if you need help long-term and are looking for a team that will grow with you. You can start off small and add talent when necessary.

Upskill

“Hire for attitude, not for skill,” is a popular refrain in the HR industry. Although it’s true that attitude is important, at the end of the day, if you’re trying to ship an application, you need developers with a particular tech stack. Upskilling can bridge the gap between your team‘s current skills and the full range of tech skills you really need. If your current employees are dedicated and eager to learn but lack specific skills, retraining them might be your best solution.

For upskilling to be successful, you first need to determine the skills your current employees need to develop. Be as specific and individual as possible. Think about each employee’s current strengths and personality and what they’ll need to know to fill a role on your software development team. This specificity will help you fill out your team better than, for example, simply offering company-wide Python training. Once you have an inventory of skills and gaps for each employee, you can work with a company such as Revature to transform your current employees into an agile team.

Hire-Train-Deploy Model

For businesses that need highly capable tech talent but aren’t having success with traditional staffing agencies, the hire-train-deploy (HTD) solution may be the answer. Rather than pulling from a generic pool of candidates, the HTD provides you with developers who have been intentionally trained to be the best fit for your business.

In the HTD model, you’ll work with a company that will help you identify the skills that are critical for your organization. Then, instead of engaging in an extensive, fruitless search for the elusive unicorn, the HTD company trains employees in their critical tech skills as well as other essential skills such as communication, leadership, and teamwork. You end up with a team that’s customized and ready to go on the first day.

Diversify Your Talent Pool

With traditionally-trained software developers in such high demand, competition to hire them is fierce. Diversifying your talent pool by looking outside of conventional channels can open up a world of new options. Choosing developers with a liberal arts background, for instance, can bring new insight and creativity to your projects.

Founders who’ve expanded to include employees with creative backgrounds and diversified experiences often reap the rewards by standing out in a crowded startup field. These employees frequently have excellent communication and critical thinking skills as well. They may have a different perspective and bring fresh ideas to your team. Implementing diversity and inclusion goals into your software development hiring practices isn’t just socially responsible, it’s also one of the best ways to innovate.

Work With an Experienced Talent Partner

If you’re looking to hire a software development team that grows with you, you need an experienced and trusted partner accustomed to supplying tech talent at scale. Look for a company that’s currently on the latest digital trends and high-volume hiring practices. Traditional staffing companies may lag behind because they rely on finding the ideal candidates rather than training them. Implementing educational programs and filling them with qualified applicants takes time.

Revature has established training programs and extensive experience moving candidates through them quickly. We’re used to working at scale and have the tools and processes in place to analyze your needs so we can source and train candidates to succeed in your organization.

Final Thoughts

Most IT departments and hiring managers tout the tech skills gap as the reason they’re having trouble growing their teams. The numbers certainly seem to support that idea. However, at Revature, we realize that the gap isn’t in tech skills, it’s in opportunities. Talent abounds but opportunity does not.

By bridging the opportunity gap, we’re able to secure a diverse, scalable pool of job-ready, emerging talent. Our experience as the leading supplier of tech talent for a wide range of industries has shown that, when given the opportunity, the underrepresented will exceed your expectations every time. Reach out today to find out how we can help you build a software development team that not only suits your immediate needs but will continue to grow with you in the future.