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.

6 Challenges when Hiring Local Tech Talents

6 Challenges when Hiring Local Tech Talents

Tech talent is a crucial component of any business operating in the modern world. No matter the industry, some kind of technology is involved in various operational processes of every company — and for good reasons. 

The competition among companies is tough today. If a business plans to get ahead and achieve the desired levels of success, acquiring and utilizing the modern pieces of tech is necessary. With technology and computers, comes the need to hire tech talent. 

Companies face various challenges while looking for ideal talent and getting them on board. In order to overcome these challenges, it’s essential to understand them first. Here are 5 of these challenges for you to learn about.

Geographical Barriers

Local talent that’s tailored to your needs is often very hard to find in your geographical area. In the majority of cases, an employer’s ideal candidate is living elsewhere in the world where they cannot be on-boarded for an in-office job. 

Not being able to find and hire local talent poses many short- and long-term efficiency issues. However, with the spread of COVID-19 last year, companies and employers have left their comfort zones to explore the possibilities of remote work. 

Remote work comes with its own set of challenges, including time zone issues & management and monitoring problems. However, for the most part, remote work environments have trimmed down the geographical barriers between employers and their ideal tech talent. 

Ever-changing Requirements

Today’s technology might become irrelevant tomorrow. That’s why employers need candidates that can adapt to the alterations in the tech world and constantly produce efficient results. However, finding and hiring such talent is a challenge, especially when confined to limited geographical space. 

Differentiating between the true talent, that can tailor their skills to the industry needs, and robotic puppets is a tough job in itself. Many employers find it challenging to perform it effectively, and when they fail, the company might need to reopen the position and go through the hiring process once again. 

A Large Number of Irrelevant Applications

Let’s face it: every employer has gone through the trouble of having to go through dozens and hundreds of applications, only to find out 80% of those were low-quality and irrelevant. Many candidates would desperately throw their resumes at every job opening they find, without considering their chances of actually getting hired for the position. 

While irrelevant candidates submit their resumes leisurely, employers have to waste a large chunk of their time finding and eliminating these applications. 

Competition from Rival Companies

Top talent, especially in the tech sector, is in high demand. Every competitive company wants to get the most talented candidates on board. This boosts the competition among employers and they have to propose better opportunities to these candidates to win them. 

Top talent knows their worth and won’t join a company solely based on the paycheck. Nowadays, long-term career opportunities and attractive promotion cycles are in high demand by employees. Employers have to find a sweet spot between providing the best possible opportunities to the candidates, and keeping the expenditures in check to not overflow the resources. 

Not Having a Top-Class HR Department

Some companies, mostly smaller ones, face the problem of working with a mediocre HR department. As job postings, interviews, and hires are conducted by the said department, the overall hiring results could suffer. 

Numerous tech companies with small/no HR departments delegate the HR functions (benefits, payroll, and unemployment administration for employees) to PEOs (Professional Employer Organization) such as NHGlobal Partners or software development companies like Daxx that provide both tech talent recruitment and HR services.

Final Word

Tech talent in the 21st century is well-aware of its worth and employers need to provide them with the best attractions to get them onboard. 

Throwing all your resources into competition for the local talents while managing a high-quality HR department is a tough feat for many tech companies.  In many cases, professional companies could provide the necessary services needed to overcome the problems: recruit talents you need remotely and provide high-class HR services. 

How Fintech Companies Hire Java Developers from Latin America?

How Fintech Companies Hire Java Developers from Latin America?

Wondering how to hire a Java developer? Kateryna Bilkovets, an experienced recruiter from Daxx who’s been helping fintech companies find and hire Java developers for more than three years in a row, to share insights about Java developers and practical tips that fintech companies can use to hire Java developers  quickly and easily. 

Kateryna describe the Java developer talent market:

There are about 8 million Java developers in the world and, according to 2020 research.

Where can we find the largest number of Java developers in 2021?

The tech talent market has a great supply of Java developers, but the demand for them is high as well. These days, Java developers are consolidated around the IT outsourcing sector.

The majority of Java developers  work on projects which are outsourced by tech businesses from the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and other countries.

So the first place I go to  when searching for Java developers  outsourcing and IT outstaffing companies is in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Dnipro — Ukraine’s top IT hubs.

What’s the usual background for a Java developer?

As a rule, Java developers begin their careers by learning Java. But there are also Java developers who switched to Java from C#. You can also find many Java developers moving to Kotlin and Scala, but they’re far less numerous than developers using Java only.

Do you have any tips you could share with fintech companies that want to hire Java developers?

Sure, I have plenty! The hiring process in the tech industry is quite simple, but there are some things you should know when hiring a Java developer. From my observations, you can easily find a Java developer and invite them to an interview, but you should remember the following aspects:

Pay attention to seasonality

Judging from statistics from previous years, there are two seasons a year when it’s easier to hire a Java developer. The first season is between February and April, when te foreign tech companies have their budgets settled and actively search for tech vendors. That’s when  recruiters actively seek Java developers and offer interesting projects. The second season is between August and October.

Optimize your recruitment process

Daxx is an IT company based in Ukraine. Our model allows our clients to conduct interviews by themselves. They can arrange as many phases of recruitment as they need to find suitable candidates. This, however, doesn’t mean that the more phases there are, the more effective the recruitment process is. In contrast, the more optimal the hiring process is, the more likely it is that a Java developer will choose your company. “But why?” you may ask. Because there’s a high demand for Java developers, which means that they can get through the hiring process at another company faster than at yours. For instance, at one company, a Java developer has to do a test task, go through an interview with an HR manager, then get interviewed by a technical expert, and then (optionally) get through a final interview. This 4-stage hiring process is tiring and time-consuming. You can simply lose a suitable candidate to another company with a more efficient hiring process. Do this instead: spare some time for an online coding session and look how a candidate resolves problems by yourself.

Discuss in detail the responsibilities of a candidate. Share as many details about the project as possible (tech stack and number of teammates). Feel free to talk about the candidate’s opportunities for growth within the company.

Are there many Java developers  working in Fintech projects?

Yes, and this makes it so easy for fintech companies to hire Java developers. 

Of course, there are large teams of Java developers who work for Deutsche Bank and other fintech giants, but the rest of Java developers create digital solutions for small and middle-sized fintech companies.

Vive is one of the Fintech companies that hired Java developers to build their product. The product’s aim is to help freelancers and other professionals to get control over their finances and become more financially aware. Vive is a perfect tool for those who want to plan their finances more efficiently and reach their life goals.

In an interview, Vive CTO Rogier Roukens said that he decided to hire Java developers  because of close cultural proximity, good English skills, reasonable salaries, great technical education, and high availability of Java developers.

The most impressive part of working with Java developers  is that engineers have top-notch technical skills, especially the senior Java developers offered by Daxx. The majority of Java developers  show initiative and share their ideas for product improvement.

“The personal qualities of developers deeply surprised me. I remember assigning a task to one of them. Later on, I realized that I had forgotten to mention some important details. So I thought that he would not be able to cope with the task in the way I had initially planned. The next day, I took a look at the solution and was surprised that he filled in the gaps exactly how I would have done it. That was remarkable” says Rogier in an interview with Daxx.

How Daxx Retains Developers in a Highly-Competitive Market

Check what retention tools are used at Daxx, how they are implemented, and why retention is the main driver of long-term cooperation.

How Daxx retains developers in Ukraine

The average monthly salary of a Java developer  varies depending on years of experience. 

For instance, the average salary of a junior Java developer in Ukraine is around $1,100 – $1,900  month. A middle Java developer earns about $1,900 – 3,200 a month, and a senior Java developer gets $3,200 – 4,800.

Junior    $1100–$1900

Middle    $1900–$3200

Senior    $3200–$4800

Considering the skills and level of expertise, on average, Java developer salaries in Ukraine, Latinoamerican salaries are lower than in countries like the US, Switzerland, Israel, and many others.

What are the things to remember about hiring Latinoamerican Java developers for a fintech company?

Here are a few things to keep in mind: there are plenty of Java developers in Latinoamerica for hire even if you need an engineer with experience in fintech projects.

Latinoamerican Java developers have sufficiently lower average salaries than their colleagues from the US, the UK, the Netherlands, and other tech-savvy countries, yet they possess big technical skills.

As a rule, Java developers in Latino America; they show interest in new job opportunities, and their role is to advertise your projects as well as they can.

Why Leading Tech Companies Always Hire an Offshore QA Team.

Why Leading Tech Companies Always Hire an Offshore QA Team.

Around 20% of startups fail in 2 years after being open, and 45% — in 5 years. They have great ideas and a lot of ambition, but why aren’t statistics so outstanding? One of the best strategies to win the market is to ensure the impeccable quality of your product — hire an offshore software tester for a small startup or a whole offshore testing team for a mature company.

Why Do We Always Need to Hire an Offshore QA Team?

Other than cost reduction, one of the reasons why business owners choose not to hire an offshore QA team is that they don’t fully understand the benefits of quality assurance and don’t see a QA team as a valuable contribution to a project’s success. They often think that their developers can take care of quality on their own.

However, a denial to invest in quality assurance can harmfully affect or even completely damage the whole business. The NASA Shuttle Challenger, British Petroleum Oil Spill, the Samsung Note 7 explosions are the world known failures because of neglecting quality assurance.

Ya habíamos hablado de la importancia del quality assurance en esta nota (link), si aun no sabes mucho sobre ello ya va siendo tiempo de que te des una vuelta por allí.

Why Outsource to Ukraine?

Get data on the state of the Ukrainian IT market and discover why Ukraine is one of the top destinations for outsourcing software development in 2021.

Choosing the Type of QA Testing for Your Team

Manual vs Automated Testing

As the name suggests, manual testing means that all the tests are executed manually (without any special tools) by a QA team. In this case, QA specialists run the program that needs testing on various devices and use it just like an end-user would.

Automated testing, on the contrary, relies on tools. It is executed autonomously, without constant support from engineers. QA testing team members use testing frameworks and pre-set scripts that run on autopilot and report any bugs or errors they find.

Manual testing is relatively easy to learn: there is practically no learning curve involved. On the other hand, QA automation requires solid engineering skills and a background in development: some of the programming languages used for QA automation in Ukraine are Java, C#, Ruby, and Python. As a result, QA automation engineers are far less numerous.

Functional vs Non-Functional Testing

Functional testing aims at verifying that a program complies with all the requirements listed in the functional specifications. This includes testing the program feature-by-feature to make sure the output is correct.

This is one of the most popular specializations among offshore quality assurance engineers in Ukraine. Many specialists focus on functional testing, and most of them have over 3 years of experience in the field. This means that it is relatively easy to find a good mid-level QA engineer for functional testing.

Non-functional testing focuses on the way a system operates in general, rather than its specific features and requirements. It covers such aspects of software as compatibility, load, usability, and security. The most popular requests for offshore QA engineers specializing in non-functional testing are:

Performance testing. By applying this type of testing, you can find out if the website or app you are building will be able to handle high loads. Performance testing specialists are not easy to find, and their salary expectations are higher than average.

Security testing. This aspect of software testing focuses on the security mechanisms of your product and makes sure that it is resistant to a variety of cyber threats, including hacker attacks and data breaches. Quality assurance engineers skilled in security testing are even harder to find than the performance testing specialists and earn even more. That is why we usually recommend using security testing services from trusted partners instead of hiring an offshore software tester on a full-time basis.

How to Hire Outsourced Offshore QA Engineers in Ukraine?

QA engineers make 16% out of 200K IT professionals in Ukraine. This means there are more than 14,000 software testers in Ukraine available to provide outsourced offshore QA services. And this number is steadily growing: there are dozens of specialized courses, both standalone and those sponsored by large Ukrainian IT companies that provide QA training.

What is the seniority level of Ukrainian QA engineers?

Half of the Ukrainian QA engineers are mid-level specialists. Senior engineers and team leads make up about 17% of the QA engineers in Ukraine.

Average experience ranges from 1 year for junior specialists to 6 years for team leads. On average, QA engineers in Ukraine have between 2 and 5 years of experience in their field. The demand-supply ratio differs depending on the seniority level.

What industries are offshore QA engineers in Ukraine working in?

25% of Ukrainian QA engineers are working in the e-commerce domain, 14% – in mobile and 11% – in the Fintech industry. Other popular business verticals among offshore QA engineers in Ukraine are Gaming, Media, Gambling and Telecom.

What type of offshore QA testing do Ukrainian software testers specialize in?

54% of Ukrainian QA testers are well-versed in manual testing and 24% – in automation testing.

What type of companies do Ukrainian QA engineers work in?

44.4% of Ukrainian testers work in outsourcing companies, 40.6% – in product companies and 9.7% – in outstaffing companies.

Hire an Offshore QA Team in Ukraine

Why Hire Offshore Quality Assurance Engineers in Ukraine with Daxx?

Offshore Quality Assurance service will guarantee a high-end product and a smooth user experience for your customers, hence bringing your company a competitive advantage and higher profit margin. 

At Daxx, we have been helping businesses from all over the world hire Ukrainian software developers and offshore QA testing engineers for 22+ years. We can help you hire a top-notch offshore QA team in Ukraine while offering a unique cooperation model. We offer on-demand team extension services through custom recruitment and retention. We will find and pre-screen tech specialists who meet your project requirements 100%. No upfront payment, no risks. Average time to hire – 4-6 weeks.

How does it work? You share your business and QA talent needs with us, we find a way to assist you and provide ongoing support. 300+ clients have already entrusted software development and quality assurance to us.