There's no doubt that finding and hiring top software developers is challenging. But it's not impossible. By understanding the critical skills that professional developers need and soft skills that will help them integrate best with your team, you can put yourself in a much better position to identify and hire suitable candidates.

When hiring, there are a plethora of factors to consider: credibility, team chemistry, experience, adaptability, coding languages, certifications, career to date, and more. Software development is a unique and demanding field. Without specific attributes, no developer, no matter how skilled, will be a valuable addition to your team. So, what are the most important?

Deadline Integrity

Any developer should prioritize being on time because timing is crucial for the success of any project, no matter how small. But how do you ascertain that they can keep to time? Ask for examples. Even before interviewing a candidate, you can ask about instances in which they were up against a deadline and how they managed. Ask them to walk you through how they prioritize tasks and plan projects; how does this compare to your working style? Will this person be compatible and able to adapt to your current processes?

Curiosity

To have curiosity is an admirable quality and one that many good developers possess. Curiosity is a quality that breeds creativity and aids problem-solving. Curiosity changes how people perceive the world, and curious people understand what it is to watch something, engage with it for learning, and apply these lessons to future endeavors.

The top developers never settle for the status quo and constantly look for better solutions and novel approaches to issues. Whether this is within their current positions or through CPD (Continued professional development), without this mindset, even a skilled developer would soon be churning out mediocre results because they aren't advancing or innovating.

How can you test for this? It is, after all, an intangible quality. Look for small details about how applicants approach the hiring process, for example:

• Are your applicants inquisitive? Do you notice them asking questions about how things can be done better? Or, can they give an example of this?
• You could also ask them about a skill they taught themselves in the past; it doesn't need to be work-related. Ask, "What was the process like for you, and what was the outcome?"
• Inquire about a period when they had to accomplish a project but were not given all the information. How much or how little background they provide will be a decent measure of their curiosity.

Passion

There isn't a drive to look for innovative solutions if one lacks passion for the work. It would help if you ascertained whether your potential hire has enthusiasm for the work they do, your company, and the projects they'll be involved in. Do they appear to love working as a programmer? Do they possess the technical know-how to discuss the topic in-depth, and do they exhibit a passion for the programming language in which they specialize?

You can get a good idea of whether applicants will be passionate about the job as they walk into the interview room. To start, assess the person's level of readiness and determine whether they are pleased with the opportunity. Are they prepared for the interview? You can understand this by observing the interviewee's demeanor and general manner of answering questions.

Dig a little deeper and find out how much they have thought about the interview. For example, "How do you plan on managing your tasks here differently if you were hired?" is an intelligent question to ask a prospect.

It can signal that a candidate is not growth-oriented if their response offers no hints of anything more significant than what they can provide right away or that they aren't interested in utilizing their experiences at other companies when working for yours. People enthusiastic about a role always search for ways to deliver better results.

Emotional intelligence and having an awareness of what that entails is absolutely key to success, and some even argue that technical skills are somewhat redundant if there is enough passion for the project.

People Skills

When applicants criticize their former workplace, there is the chance that they are not good at maintaining working relationships. Speaking about previous employers particularly harshly hints at, at best, a lack of control and social skills in business conversations and, at worst, someone who is challenging to work with. While there are times when working relationships don't end well, there is a correct way to address these situations, and bad-mouthing previous employers isn't one of them.

People skills are essential in almost all business settings and crucial if your developer will be client-facing. Even if the role has no client contact, ensuring the employee works agilely and connects with the broader team or other departments is vital.

Adaptability

When trying to hire in a constantly evolving field like programming, the inability to adapt or handle change is a major red flag. Applicants who complain about shifting standards won't be quality team members and won't adapt to changing client demands. A candidate with experience in various settings, perhaps even across several industries, is a better option than one with an abundance of experience in one field. Look for programmers who have evolved in their roles and demonstrated more than just the essential abilities required for the position.

Asking applicants to recount how they handled different situations in the past will help you determine how adaptable they are. For instance, ask how they reacted when a time-standing procedure or process changed. Or indeed when a client made a last-minute U-turn on a project. An adaptable person will respond enthusiastically, as they don't mind embracing changes.

Technical Skills & Testing

A competent developer will have both soft skills and technical skills that go beyond the basics, some core areas to look at when selecting a top developer aren't necessarily the obvious ones. Testing an applicant's technical knowledge during the interview process is beneficial for seeing how one person performs and comparing this to other developers you have in the interview process. Coding tests are commonplace in software development, and most applicants will happily oblige, the results of testing should be a core component of your decision-making process.

Coding languages

While junior developers choose one or two languages to know in-depth, high-flying developers know about five languages on the surface and specialize in at least four. Here are some of the most in-demand coding languages to look out for.

• JavaScript
• HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
• Cascading Styles Sheets (CSS)
• Python
• C++
• Java

Knowledge of Database Software

Electronic databases enable people to categorize and structure information, particularly business records. Knowledge of some of the best database software for developers such as MySQL, Oracle, and DB2, and how they work is pertinent for when it is needed to search for information, add new lines of data to tables, or update systems with new information.

Source Control Management

The term "source control management" (SCM) refers to a software development team's tool to keep track of updates and coding language modifications. Because several developers will frequently collaborate on a shared codebase, source code management for collaborative coding is crucial. Without this skill, a developer could unintentionally make conflicting code changes while working on a unique feature or replace the ones made by another developer. These could be costly mistakes easily avoidable by someone with experience with SCM software.

Testing Procedures

Before a business releases software to users, it must undergo rigorous testing. The key to success is to employ various digital technologies to check that a product works and adheres to its design specifications. As far as testing procedures are concerned, you could look out for a developer that knows at the minimum:

• Basic functionality testing.
• Code review.
• Static code analysis.
• Unit testing.
• Single-user performance testing.

Other knowledge

It is common and somewhat typical for developers to despise debugging. However, debugging is essential, and any developer that can't fix bugs or loathes it will likely be a poor addition to your team as this again signals a lack of adaptability and resistance to change. It may not be the best part of the job, but it is a necessary one!

Similarly, knowledge of a good, reliable text editor is needed when building a website from scratch, editing a CSS file, or working on configuration files on a server so it’s essential your potential hire has some experience with one or more of these programs. Here is a list of some of the most popular text editors used by developers as ranked by Web FX.

• NotePad++
• TextMate
• Coda
• Vim
• PSPad
• Aptana

Final word

Finally, most companies know that it's a good idea to keep track of candidates, particularly junior ones who will progress through their software development careers and may be suitable for other roles within the business or later. So, it's also a good idea to use robust applicant tracking software to help you manage all candidates' data and keep track of your star applicants. Hiring developers with Upstack can help you find the right developers among the sea of mediocre candidates and help you manage this process in a highly efficient manner.

Though the process of hiring the right developer can be time-consuming, following a rigorous and thorough vetting process is worth the hassle. If you get the hiring stage right, you will save yourself hours in management and unnecessary training.