Five Tips For Hiring Software Developers Internationally

Introduction

Employers are emerging from the pandemic into a familiar situation of widespread software talent shortages and a rapidly increasing demand for emerging technologies. The challenges of hiring a software developer are well known-- it can be an expensive process!

Post-pandemic, remote working has gone mainstream and opened the global talent market, making it easier than ever for employers to find offshore talent.

This makes it an opportunistic time for hiring software developers offshore to plug your skills gaps.

What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Software Developer Internationally?

It’s more cost effective.

This data from QubitLab compares the average salaries of developers around the world and reveals that employers can make significant savings from hiring a software developer internationally due to relative cost of living differences.

For example, developer salaries in the US and Australia tend to be highest across all technologies, meaning employers from these two locations can make payroll savings when hiring software developers in any offshore location.

Employers in Northwestern Europe stand to make significant payroll savings when hiring software developers internationally in either Eastern or Southern Europe where developers' salaries are lower.

Such payroll savings become more pronounced as Northern European employers begin hiring software developer talent in India and Southeast Asia. These emerging talent economies, which are rich in technical skills, offer the biggest payroll savings due to substantial cost of living differences from the west.

You have access to more talent.

76% of IT decision-makers face critical skills gaps in their department, (up 145% since 2016), according to the Global Knowledge 2021 IT Skills and Salary Report. A timely benefit of hiring software developers internationally is wider access to talent which can also lead to a greater ability to source scarce talent.

This analysis by Dice reveals twelve hotspots where there remains a good supply of software development talent: Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, Ukraine (pre-2022), India, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, Argentina, and China

Five Tips for Hiring Software Developers Globally

1. Use a real-life development task.

Research from Beard et al 2004 tells us that one of the most reliable forms of candidate assessment is real-life work samples. Assessing a candidate's ability to complete a real-life job task is an exceptionally reliable predictor of future job performance. That is why today’s leading tech recruiters assess developers' abilities using programming tests and live coding interviews.

Programming Tests

Hiring managers give candidates real-life development tasks, (such as debugging some code) and candidates are required to resolve the problem as they would if doing the job. By using a specialist developer assessment platform like Hackerrank employers get an automated analysis of the candidate’s real-life development skills. This system lets employers choose real-life tasks that evaluate a range of programming languages and assign them to candidates who do the tasks within the system. Once completed, the platform automatically assesses the candidate’s code, which the system scores and ranks based on a range of performance metrics.

Live Coding Interviews

Normally, a live coding interview takes place between the hiring manager and candidate using screen-sharing within a specialist online interview and assessment platform. Imocha is one example of a platform offering such functionality. In this kind of assessment, the candidate receives a typical development task they might face on the job. The recruiter watches the candidate via screen share as they complete the task.

What is great about both these assessment techniques is that they are virtual, and recruiters can therefore use them to assess programmer candidates anywhere in the world.

2. Be flexible (where possible) around the candidate’s entry requirements

Udacity and Ipsos surveyed employers and found that 56% of them are struggling to hire staff with the digital experience they require. If you are one of those employers, can you find a way to relax those entry requirements to enable you to accept candidates who you might normally reject? Is your organization able to accommodate close-fit candidates if recruiters cannot find exact fits? Hiring and upskilling an adaptable close-fit candidate with broadly transferable technical skills could deliver a productive programmer faster than holding out for the perfect candidate.

3. Consider the best type of hire for your needs [e.g. freelancer, full-time employee, part-time employee]

Look at each resourcing situation individually and resource accordingly. For example, if you have a long-term predictable flow of work for one FTE it might make sense to engage a full-time employee. If it is an isolated role within your business, you might consider hiring two part-timers instead of 1 FTE to provide better redundancy and resource flexibility. For unpredictable, ad-hoc assignments with a sudden start-stop capability then a freelancer may be more suited as they are more willing and able to work with such uncertainty.

4. Go remote

Extensive research into remote working during the pandemic has shown that given the right technologies and best practices remote employees can be just as productive as they would be when working in the office. This is great because a remote operation has distinct advantages over one where employees are co-located. The main advantage is that employers are no longer confined to the local candidate market; they can hire employees anywhere and have access to a global candidate market. Remote roles are generally proving more attractive to modern workers who have been shown to prioritize the ability to work flexibly over a higher salary even. Global remote teams can be more agile and quicker to market as you can save money and time not having to establish a traditional office.

5. Set compensation/benefits competitively

Hiring developers internationally will require a detailed understanding of local market conditions around salary and benefits, as they can vary dramatically by country due to cost-of-living differences. Pitching your reward package at the right level for the local market is crucial to attracting the best developers. For the most popular global offshoring destinations you will be able to benchmark reward levels using freely available compensation and benefits surveys, usually made available online by local recruitment agencies. If you are hiring software developers remotely in less-frequented locations data may be scarce and you may need to purchase compensation figures from a specialist agency.

Conclusion

If your company wants to hire remote software developers internationally, you have options. In addition to the time-consuming and expensive option of opening a local entity, you can engage a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) like Horizons. Horizons will hire your candidate on your behalf in as little as 48 hours, taking care of payroll and tax compliancy so you can focus on the core of your business. If you would rather hire freelancers, we can help with that too with our contractor management services.

Horizons is a specialist PEO providing support to companies expanding internationally. We have extensive experience hiring software engineers all over the world. Contact us today for a free consultation.