Hiring good developers is one of the cornerstones of success for serious businesses in the modern world. The development team is the engineering room of an organization - the beating heart that drives so much of what a company can do, what it produces, and how it functions.

As a result, ensuring that you get the best developers and develop appropriate, optimized structures in which they can work is hugely important.

And while technical ability, coding, and programming - the core development skills - are vital, it is essential not to neglect other aspects of the developers you hire and the team itself. Just as the IT department has moved beyond just fixing computers and sorting out phone lines into organizational strategy, the development team can have a far more integrated and nuanced impact on a business if deployed correctly.

"There are different skill sets and bodies of knowledge in each market in terms of engineering," - Adrian McDermott, SVP of Product Development, Zendesk

In this article, we will look at the core principles of what developers do, how you should go about hiring the ultimate development team, and where that team fits into your broader organization.

What do developers do?

The first step in putting together an outstanding development team, and leveraging its full potential, is understanding exactly what developers do.

In simple terms, developers provide digital software solutions to external problems. The design, program, build, deploy, and maintain software practically. This might mean client-facing apps, network architecture, or operating systems. It might also mean programming, coding, monitoring for bugs, and optimizing user experiences and interfaces.

Front-end vs. back-end developers

Front-end developers are primarily concerned with how users will experience the software they are working on and how users will interact with it. This skill set is usually referred to as user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design.

Front-end developers design the parts of the software that clients will see, the 'front-end' of a website or app, and optimize software to ensure that it is easy and intuitive for those who need to use it. It often involves a careful balancing act between ensuring that the software does what it is meant to and ensuring that it looks and feels good.

Back-end developers are the people responsible for the bricks-and-mortar of software, the architecture, structures, technology, and code that makes an app or a website tick. They construct the foundations while front-end developers take care of the facade. Back-end developers are also usually responsible for debugging and monitoring for errors and working alongside front-end developers to ensure that the nuts and bolts fit with the shop window.

Full stack developers

Full-stack developers have one foot in each camp, dealing with UX design and ensuring that the user interface is seamless while also developing back-end functions at the same time.

Full-stack developers are also responsible for ensuring that the software they design is used across various platforms.

How to hire great developers

Software development requires agility, flexibility, and speed of thought and action. Hiring the right developers, particularly for a start-up, can be challenging. You want to put together a well-rounded team who can design and build high-quality, attractive products, problem-solve effectively, and be on top or even ahead of emerging trends and innovation in the industry.

There is no single best way to find great developers, as the talent pool is vast, diversified, and geographically distributed. Digital transformation and the rise of remote work means that companies can search for talent anywhere in the world - something that allows you to find the best people for the job, but that also presents a daunting amount of choice.

It is always a great idea to defer to those with knowledge and experience, both in recruitment and the work itself, and to go where the talent is. Asking for referrals from team members or other developers is an excellent place to start, and outsourcing to a recruitment agency can help too. There are several excellent freelancing forums and websites where good developers abound, and there is even the option of going external for a complete done-for-you development team, which can reduce the burden significantly.

Whichever route you go down, the key is to start the process with clearly defined goals and desired outcomes. You need to know precisely what you are looking for if you want to find it, and potential hires will want to know if their skills, experience, and values sync up with yours. Highly skilled developers are in high demand, so you will need to sell your project and vision a little to attract top talent.

What should you look for in a developer?

Technical skills

Software development is a technical field, and your development team must have the skills required to build premium software.

The specific skills you are looking for may vary depending on the project. Still, in general, your potential developers need to be fluent in the relevant language and framework of the project and able to code effectively and quickly. They should have a solid grasp of source control and be able to manage and maintain databases, build and interpret complex algorithms, and be proficient in cloud computing.

It is also worth seeking developers with a certain level of knowledge about privacy and cybersecurity and someone with expert IDE skills.

More than just technical skills

Great companies are built on more than just expertise. Passion, enthusiasm, and collaboration are all linchpins of the most successful projects and businesses, and software development is no exception. As a result, ensuring that your development team has more to offer your organization than just their technical skills (impressive as they might be) is incredibly valuable.

"I used to be a cynical developer who said "I hate people. I'd rather just code all day." But years later, I've come to realize I actually love other people for their passions, their ideas, and their stories. What made me realize this was being on a great team--the same kind of great team that a "tech skills are all that matter" believer would (and several times, did) struggle to fit into." - Jerod Venema, CEO, and Co-Founder, Liveswitch

It is worth looking for self-starters who can demonstrate an ability to collaborate effectively with team members and across teams and organizational levels. Mistakes in software development are unavoidable, so your potential hire should be able to deal well with risk and failure, have a positive attitude and the ability to move forward from errors, and always be looking to improve their skills.

Finally, agile teams can sometimes be unstructured, and developers must be able to cope without rigid systems or constant oversight. This attribute allows them to be more proactive and adventurous in their work and is also one of the skills that can help the development team add value across the organization.

The right development team can positively impact every level of your business, so hire accordingly.

Where do developers fit in the rest of the organization?

Once upon a time, the development team would have been separate from the rest of the organization, most likely under the auspices of the information technology department. But times have changed (for the better!), and now software development influences every level of an organization, and input is required from various other teams and departments.

Software development is now an organizational endeavor, so breaking down the barriers between development and business teams is crucial. Developing a collaborative culture and structuring your development teams is vital to making cross-departmental working possible. Agile project management makes it far simpler for non-technical managers to direct a technical team. Still, there must be a buy-in for these approaches at every company level.

What can developers bring to the team (beyond their role)?

Agile working is an excellent example of software development teams' impact beyond the confines of pure software development. Originally designed to enable faster, more effective, and more customer-focused development processes, agile is increasingly popular in many other areas. Teams of all shapes and sizes have adopted the Agile Methodology to encourage more productive working and better outcome/client-focused deliverables.

The core principles of software development can therefore be extrapolated and leveraged in a diverse range of situations and areas, and your development team should be regarded as a resource that can have a beneficial impact on strategy, business development, and organizational process, to name just a few.

Hiring the right developers and building a culture of collaborative working and cross-team knowledge sharing can bring extremely positive outcomes for businesses. As a result, it is always worth taking a deeper, more nuanced look at your development team and what they can offer your organization.