Recruiting: Tips for building a strong software development team

Are you hiring developers or designers?

We’ve hired hundreds of engineers and designers at Mayven Studios over the last 10 years and have a few tips to make sure you are hiring strong engineering and design talent. As usual, a little planning goes a long way.

If you want to learn more about how we recruit and hire developers, read below.

1. Define your needs. 

First, you should start with your needs. How many developers or designers are you going to hire? Are they going to be part of an existing team or a new one? Are you looking for Senior talent to lead a team or someone entry or mid-level to round out the skills of an existing team with a team lead?

Once you understand how these new people will fit into the team, you need a job description. Start off by writing a strong job description, including an internal spec of When writing a job description, clearly outline what you are looking for in terms of skills and experience to ensure you attract the right candidates. 

2. Use a variety of sourcing channels. 

The more visible your job advertisements are, the wider the talent pool you’ll attract. You should use a variety of sourcing channels, such as job boards, employee referrals and social media.  We use a few different websites for sourcing and typically get a ton of candidates even as a small agency who is not necessarily widely known. Since we hire only remote, our favorite is weworkremotely.com.

3. Creative an attractive job listing.

To attract the right candidate, you must curate an attractive listing. Not only should it cover the role in detail, but also the benefits of working for your company. 

4. Offer competitive compensation and benefits.

To attract top talent, you need to provide them with competitive compensation benefits, such as flexible work and professional development opportunities. For example, a recent study found that 76% of employees want flexible work hours. With our team, this is one of our biggest perks. We mostly don’t care when you work, as long as you are available at predictable hours during your work day and online every work day.

5. Use pre-employment assessments.

Technical interviews and coding challenges, or other industry-relevant pre-employment assessments, can evaluate the skills of a candidate and will often tell you more about their suitability for the role than their CV.  We have a variety of tests and tools to make sure that the developer we are hiring is right for the job.

6. Assess cultural fit. 

Company culture plays a huge role in overall success, so you should also ensure that candidates align with company values before welcoming them to the team. 

7. Use employee referral programs. 

Employee referral programs mean you’re able to tap into a network of talent you are already familiar with and know you can trust. 

8. Leverage online resources. 

Online resources, such as online groups and developer networks, streamline the process of finding your ideal candidate, as the likelihood is that they are already embedded in these communities.

9. Utilize specialist recruiters. 

Recruiters with demonstrable industry knowledge and insight can make it much easier to find and screen the right candidates for your company. 

10. Use hiring marketplace websites. 

Use popular websites, such as Upwork, Linkedin, Indeed and Toptal,  to seek out talented developers, as they are likely already using these platforms to search for jobs.