7 Websites to Find a Programmer for Your Startup

7 Websites to Find a Programmer for Your Startup

Hard to find local startup programmers? It’s not just you. The majority of startups that are looking for developers turn to remote hiring through online job boards, matching services, and tech vendors. We analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of Daxx, Upwork, Remote.io, Toptal, LinkedIn, AngelList, and Stack Overflow — the most effective resources for you to find a programmer for your startup who would match your skill set requirements, budget, corporate values, and be fully dedicated to your product.

1. Daxx

Daxx is a tech company that helps startups find experienced programmers for long-term cooperation by recruiting each candidate for a specific position, providing retention services, and locating them in modern remote offices.

While on the local tech market Daxx is known as one of the top employers for its approach to talent retention, on the global market it’s famous for the high quality of development, acknowledged by the Microsoft Gold Certification as well as the ISO 27001:2013 and ISO 9001:2015 Certifications. 

Vetting process: Daxx’s recruiters do pre-screening and, if requested, exercise due diligence on each candidate. Then, they share matching CVs with clients. After the clients have picked suitable CVs, they interview the candidates and hire those who match the required hard and soft skills sets and team dynamics.

Dedication: The startup programmers you hire through Daxx work for you just like your in-house team and are 100% dedicated to the development of your product.

Salaries: Working with Daxx, you’ll pay a vendor fee and the developer’s monthly salary, which is $1,300–$1,900 for a junior startup programmer and  around $1,900–$3,600 for a middle developer. Meanwhile, in the US and Switzerland, a developer will cost you around $9,000 and $8,000 respectively.

Recruitment and Retention: Daxx is a good match for tech startups that haven’t got recruitment and HR managers onboard. From the very first day, startup programmers you hire with Daxx work from our offices in Ukraine’s largest tech hubs in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Lviv.

Services: With Daxx, you can build a dedicated team of startup programmers and other tech specialists, and make use of additional services, such as security testing, DevOps, quality control, and process consulting.

Pros and cons of working with Daxx

Pros of Daxx

You can find middle and senior startup programmers with rare skills for a reasonable remuneration

All the developers in your team work from the same location

Daxx sets up workstations and all the necessary software required by the client

You manage the developers as your in-house team, they share your values and foster corporate culture

A tech startup can work with Daxx’s recruiters and HR managers to hire top tech talents

You can grow your dedicated team from 1 to 100+ people

Transparent fees — you know exactly what you pay for

21 years of experience on the market and hundreds of satisfied clients

Cons of Daxx

You need to have tech expertise to manage your remote developers on a daily basis

2. Upwork

Upwork is a freelance marketplace known for its robust search filters, candidates’ work history, and a large database of candidates. 

Vetting process: Upwork has no pre-vetting process. Candidates fill in their profiles by themselves. Clients can read reviews about their previous projects on the candidates’ profile pages. After they find a suitable candidate, they schedule an interview.

Dedication: Upwork lists candidates who offer both full-time and part-time engagement. One of the drawbacks of the platform is that clients have no guarantee that developers they hire through Upwork are fully dedicated to the project, which raises security concerns. Productivity tracking is only available for programmers who work through the hourly payment method.

Salaries: Upwork has candidates from different parts of the world, which means salary ranges differ a great deal. An hourly rate can be as low as 3$ or as high as $170 depending on the candidate’s seniority level, the rarity of skill set, and location. 

Recruitment and retention: The platform doesn’t offer assistance in the selection, recruitment, and retention of startup developers. All these functions are to be performed on the client’s side. On the bright side, clients get a two-week trial period.

Pros and cons of working with Upwork

Pros of Upwork

You can post your positions fast

Advanced filters (experience, feedback, location)

Suitable for short-term collaboration

You can see freelancers’ experience and read feedback

The platform covers the billing process

Best for hiring middle or junior individual developers

Cons of Upwork

The client has to take care of all the security measures and other administrative hustles

High failure rate and a time-consuming vetting process

Lack of engagement, dedication, and low productivity

Requires deep tech expertise and a clear vision of the product

Hiring a whole team and scaling it is highly problematic

You have to work within the Upwork environment, any cooperation outside the system is prohibited

3. Remote.io

Remote.io is a job board for remote job seekers from all around the world.

Job posts that you publish on Remote.io also get reshared on Nomadic and Google for Jobs, which increases the number of viewers.

Remote.io provides great convenience to remote programmers by offering integrated tools such as Top Resume, Resume Atelier, edX, Canva, OneSimCard, Airbnb, Crypto.com, G Suite, and Trip.com — each of them covering a part of a digital nomad’s routine like booking dwelling and purchasing currency.

Vetting process: Remote.io doesn’t officiate that they provide any pre-screening or vetting of the candidates. On the surface level, it seems that the job board only provides a large database of job opportunities but doesn’t go any further from there. 

Dedication: The platform lists jobs with full-time and part-time engagement but doesn’t offer any integrations of productivity tracking tools, which means that clients are responsible for managing the productivity of their freelancers.

Salaries: Salaries depend on the job seeker’s preferences and are not balanced by any local market.

Recruitment and retention: The platform works as a job board where clients post their job descriptions and developers apply for them. Since Remote.io only lists job posts, the recruitment process is managed on the client’s side.

Pros and cons of working with Remote.io

Pros of Remote.io

Large database of resumes and job postings for full-time and part-time jobs

Free employer dashboard to track job listing

You can look through job posts free of charge

Cons of Remote.io

The client has to take care of all the security measures and other administrative hustles

The job board doesn’t refund costs for published online job listings and pre-purchased job listing credits

Hiring a whole team and scaling it is highly problematic

Asynchronous working hours

Inconvenient search filters

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4.Toptal

Toptal is a matching service that operates with a community of vetted freelancers. Toptal, on the one hand, offers a database of vetted tech specialists. But on the other hand, it limits the choice so that clients can only choose from the candidates in the database.

Vetting process: Toptal takes pride in vetting and pre-screening each programmer who applies for membership in the community. The vetting process includes analysis of soft skills including ethical values, attitude, education, and English proficiency.

Dedication: Toptal offers collaboration on an hourly, weekly, part-time, and full-time basis and sends bills twice a month.

Salaries: Since Toptal works exclusively with middle and senior programmers, you can expect quite high rates and monthly salaries, all of which will be followed by vendor fees. The service invoices clients twice a month and allows them to review invoices before paying them.

Recruitment and retention: Toptal doesn’t charge either recruitment or termination fees. Clients are offered a probation period to decide whether a candidate matches their needs.

Services: Besides recruitment, Toptal offers additional services such as taking care of paperwork, managing weekends, vacations, and terminations.

Pros and cons of working with Toptal

Pros of Toptal

As a customer, you can use support and relocation services

You work with applicants who went through a vetting process

Toptal mitigates risks by covering expenses connected with failed collaboration

Initial deposit of $500

Cons of Toptal

Building a cross-functional team takes a long time

Developer rates start from $60/hour

The client has to take care of all the security and administrative hustles

5. Linkedin

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. Each profile is structured like a resume, so employers can see an up-to-date work history of potential candidates.

LinkedIn offers the LinkedIn Recruiter tool for improved search of candidates. However, even the free version has enough filters to find a programmer.

Vetting process: LinkedIn has no vetting process.

Dedication: The level of dedication of programmers you hire through LinkedIn depends on your negotiations since the platform doesn’t regulate it.

Salaries: The salaries of freelance programmers you hire via LinkedIn are negotiable. Most likely, the salary of a programmer will be similar to the average salaries common to the specific area the programmer comes from.

Pros and cons of working with LinkedIn

Pros of LinkedIn

Large database of programmers and informative profiles

Employers need to be aware of the peculiarities of local talent markets to successfully hire developers

You can use LinkedIn Recruiter for advanced search

Cons of LinkedIn

You need to have a tech specialist, a recruiter, and an HR to search for, reach out to, and interview startup programmers

You have to manage all the primary and support processes by yourself

Much easier to find a full scale provider than a small team

6. AngelList

AngelList, also known as Angel.co, is a remote jobs marketplace that matches tech companies with startup programmers and marketers.

Vetting process: The platform doesn’t moderate the vetting process. Instead, developers create profiles and apply for jobs via the platform. Startups look through applications and answer suitable candidates.

Dedication: Startup programmers who use AngelList can be engaged in product development on a full-time and part-time basis.

Salaries: The salaries of startup programmers vary depending on the extent to which they’re engaged on the project, years of experience, location, and personal preferences. So they can be as low as $45,000 or as high as $200,000 per year.

Services: Besides listing job positions for startup programmers, the platform also offers venture investment opportunities. Recruitment and retention, however, aren’t among AngelList’s services.

Pros and cons of working with AngelList

Pros of AngelList

Large database of registered startup programmers

You can schedule interviews through the platform

Recruiters have a dashboard that gathers data about candidates and creates a funnel

Recurring $250 fee for each hired programmer

Cons of AngelList

Dedicated account manager is only available if you’re using the paid plan

All the admin work is managed by the client

Finding a team is hard, but possible

7. Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is a digital platform for finding a programmer for a startup using an AI-based matching algorithm.

Vetting process: Startups receive a list of the best-fitting startup programmers. After that, the vetting process and all the stages of recruitment are conducted by the startup. Stack Overflow, however, helps recruiters build pipelines and track candidates in a convenient tool.

Dedication: Dedication of startup programmers depends on the needs of a startup. You can hire programmers for full-time and part-time collaboration.

Salaries: Stack Overflow has a database of programmers who command a wide range of salaries. One more thing you want to consider is the initial fee Stack Overflow charges. Though the exact price isn’t mentioned on their official website, some users inform that it can reach up to $5,000, which equals a monthly salary of a top startup programmer in Ukraine.

Services: Besides a convenient talent management tool, Stack Overflow allows employers to advertise their job posts and build employer brands.

How to Hire a Successful Remote Software Development Team?

How to Hire a Successful Remote Software Development Team?

A startup’s chances of building a successful product directly depend on its software development team. Early-stage startups usually have at least one tech-savvy founder but little money. Often, they can’t afford an office and build and fine-tune their product themselves, working remotely.

However, remote employees may be a startup’s oyster. Instead of relying only on the local workforce, startup founders can hire top specialists from more affordable foreign markets. 

Eventually, they can open a physical headquarters, but more and more startups opt for distributed workforce models. It’s even more reasonable during the COVID-19 crisis that makes teams shift to remote work anyway and puts budgets under increasing pressure.

Established companies are increasingly relying on offshore outsourcing too.

This article outlines the benefits of remote software development and procedures to hire the right workers. The management of such teams differs from managing software development teams in-house, so we’ll offer some tips as well.

Distributed Workforce Models and Examples

In the software industry, two team compositions are typically distinguished: on-site (co-located) and virtual teams. These latter are subdivided into distributed and remote teams. These terms are often used interchangeably, but there is an inherent difference between the types.

A distributed team is a hybrid model combining co-located and remote workers and practices. Any business managing remote teams in different locations can be called a distributed company. It may have a physical office or offices located in different cities or even countries, but the team members can work from anywhere, e.g., their homes, co-working spaces, cafes, or while traveling, using digital collaboration tools. 

It’s suitable for startups looking to augment their teams with remote talent while downsizing their office, transitioning from a physical office to the all-remote model, or just exploring the pros and cons of virtual teams for their business.

A totally remote team doesn’t need any physical headquarters, only a virtual office built with digital tools. Colleagues that may live all over the world and work from home or other places, nevertheless, collaborate using videoconferencing and other technology.

Many tech companies began remote-first and are still driven by a distributed workforce. Here are several examples: 

1. Automattic

The people behind WordPress, WooCommerce, and many others have been managing remote teams for over 15 years. Without any physical headquarters, around 1,300 Automatticians collaborate across 77 countries. 

2. Basecamp

Where Ruby on Rails was born, is another original remote-first company. Starting with four people, now they have about fifty located in 32 cities around the world. They love working remotely so much they wrote a book on it.

3. Buffer

Is a fully distributed team of 85 people living in 15 countries. Grown from humble beginnings, they are now serving over 73,000 customers.

4. GitLab

Is arguably the largest all-remote company. Convinced that all digital product companies will operate similarly eventually, they also have published a handbook about managing software development teams remotely.

5. InVision

Has 700 employees distributed across the world. When a fully remote team was building InVision Studio and spotting gaps in their workflow, they applied their solutions to ensure the platform’s intuitiveness, accessibility, and efficiency for other remote workers.

6. Zapier

Is based in Sunnyvale, California, but employs 300 people across 17 time zones. Deeply concerned about remote team management, they created their own applicant tracking system and The Ultimate Guide to Remote Work.

Naturally, remote software development is not a magical cure for all startups’ problems. Like any practice, the model has its pros and cons.

Software Developers Working Remotely: Pros and Cons

Many startups are afraid of hiring remote workers for two reasons. First, most people are used to going to the office to work. The second reason concerns building a remote and co-located team together, which would require the optimization of all processes for both teams.

Along with the fear of changes, the following disadvantages are usually cited:

  • The remote team’s inadequate knowledge of your product.
  • Remote employees may not know much about your product at the very beginning.
  • However, proper onboarding, communication, and project management can solve this problem quickly.
  • Lack of personal contact with and among remote developers.
  • Candidates usually can’t come in for an interview, and some companies have difficulty trusting someone they haven’t met face-to-face. 
  • Others believe that when developers work miles away from them, it’s impossible to manage, control, and motivate them. 
  • This myth is refuted by numerous successful companies outsourcing their software development. 

Moreover, at some point, you will be happy that your project manager (PM) relieves you of the burden of daily interaction with every team member. As for the perceived lack of interaction between remote workers, modern technology can make them feel more connected than employees who work in the same office.

Different time zones, languages, and cultures significant time differences may cause delays, inconveniences, and distractions to the startup leadership and the distributed team. 

However, the right communication strategy and tools will mitigate the inconveniences and risks. As long as remote developers are willing to communicate during your business hours, a time difference poses little problem. 

The right attitude and vast international experience also eliminate the problem of language and cultural barriers. Major outsourcing software companies guarantee their developers’ English language competence. Moreover, their cultural diversity can benefit a project or product.

It may take a while to find a suitable team.

Hiring the right remote software development team takes more effort and time than hiring a single freelancer, to say nothing of a local specialist. However, once contracted, a reliable partner will boost a company’s productivity and growth significantly. 

Thus, each problem either has a well-known solution or a “silver lining.” Moreover, they are fully offset by the following benefits:

1. Access to the best talent

Instead of hiring professionals available nearby, entrepreneurs can select from the global pool of talent. They can hire the best experts to suit their unique project goals and needs at reasonable compensation.

When you work with outsourcing agencies, they typically offer pre-screened candidates that have met a prior quality standard. These professionals have rich expertise and experience in implementing various features, employing multiple technologies, and solving issues for international clients. They are interested in positive feedback and references from clients, keenly aware of corporate policies, and quickly adapt to dynamic work culture. Remote work environments, with more freedom and less pressure, increase their creativity and productivity.

2. Faster start and continuous development 

It’s common to hire for projects a whole outsourced software development team rather than recruit professionals one-by-one. Clients get all the amassed software development expertise they need for a complex project. The team, which is already fully staffed and has gone through a vetting process, is accustomed to working together and can set off on the project immediately.

As distributed team members are located in different time zones, it’s fair to say that remote developers work for you around the clock. According to several industry surveys, remote workers tend to be more engaged than their peers working in offices. A developer who works from home experiences fewer distractions. Outsourced teams that have an immediate need to remain on the cutting edge of the industry also have greater development capabilities. All of these factors accelerate a product’s time-to-market.

3. Minimizing administrative tasks

Offshore team members are essentially your employees that are managed and housed by your outsourcing partner. You don’t have to find space for them, make payroll, etc. Remote team leads and PMs take away most of your headaches associated with the product development process. This frees up your resources and enables you to focus on acquiring and retaining customers, increasing sales, and more.

Once the work is done and the team is paid, there are no more obligations. It’s up to you to continue the cooperation, order support, or part ways.

4. Saving money

An offshore team has a lower burn rate. For example, in Eastern Europe, it’s possible to secure high quality at much lower prices than in Western Europe or North America. Startups typically pay for the hours spent working on their project or a fixed service fee. They don’t need to pay health benefits, taxes, equipment, or insurance. All-remote teams don’t have to pay for office rent and maintenance either.

Outsourcing agencies help startups avoid expenses associated with recruitment, personnel management, payroll, infrastructure, accounting, and financial management. They also help estimate the development budget so the startups can plan ahead.

5. Expanded market reach

Closely connected with your product, the remote employees will become unpaid brand ambassadors in their respective areas. Thus, by collaborating with outsourcing companies and web or mobile app developers located across the globe, companies are indirectly expanding their market reach. 

If you opt for working remotely, pros and cons, risks, and side effects should be considered. The following bits of advice may help you mitigate those risks when you build your distributed software development team.

Conclusion

The benefits of remote software development teams for businesses include access to the best talent out there, work around the clock, quick project completion, and exemption from the bulk of administrative and project management tasks. Startups that outsource software development offshore can achieve more significant economies.

Whether you decide to run as a distributed team or entirely remotely, you will need proper tools and work processes in place. Remote and distributed companies also need to know the nuances of managing remote employees located in different time zones.