If you decide to create a mobile app and have no necessary programming skills, it is logical to start looking for developers to bring your ideas to life. Generally, there are two ways to do it:
1. Contact a developer company and let them handle the development process for you. This way you can focus on other areas of your business. At Surf, we have more than 12 years of app development experience and will be glad to work on your app.
2. Hire developers and build your own team. If you plan to put the new app at the center of your business and need a team dedicated to the project for a long time, this approach might be more suitable for you.
Hiring programmers today is no easy task — software developer is one of the most demanded professions, and their employment forecast projects 20% growth by the end of the decade, which is faster than average.
This means having a generic job offer with an average salary might not cut it: software developers have plenty of jobs to choose from and every factor comes into play, including flexibility of working hours and originality of problems to solve. Read on to learn the best countries to look for ‘code wizards’ and where to hire them.
Which country to choose?
When choosing a geographical location to outsource software developers, it is important to consider several aspects:
Besides America with thousands professional and well-required software engineers, there are some places to find talents for your project as well.
Europe: Poland, Hungary
Developers from several Central and Eastern European countries are some of the most skillful on the market while having relatively low development costs. Also, being part of the Western world, people from these countries comfortably adapt to American working practices and culture, while showing a good average command in English.
Poland is a firm leader in many outsourcing and software development rankings among Central European countries. There are many talented developers with a high level of English, while the hourly rates are lower compared to the Western part of Europe. Also, Poland has less time difference with the American continent than Eastern Europe, which makes it more convenient to set up business meetings.
English level: High (16th place in EF English Proficiency Index).
Min. hourly rate: $41.
Time zone: GMT +1 (European part).
In Hungary, there are over 70 institutions offering IT and computing programs, and more than 3000 students who graduate annually. Besides, Hungary is among 50 of the most developed countries if we consider technology and science. Skilled and talented engineers choose Python, Java, and PHP to build their projects. Hourly rate isn’t high for the quality you get.
English level: High (18th place in EF English Proficiency Index).
Min. hourly rate: $50.
Time zone: GMT +2.
Asia: India, Philippines
Being one of the most densely populated regions in the world, the Southern part of Asia offers an immense pool of talents with high skills in SQL, Java, JS, C++, PHP and lower-than-average hourly rates, making it one of the top offshore hiring destinations for IT-specialists.
India holds first place in the Global Innovation ranking for two years in a row thanks to the country’s level of innovations and highly-skilled talents. Being the second most populated country in the world, there are almost 500 thousand software developers with very cost-efficient hourly pay rates. The downside? Lower English proficiency compared to other countries in the region.
English level: Low (50th place in EF English Proficiency Index).
Min. hourly rate: $30.
Time zone: GMT +5:30.
The Philippines is one of the most popular outsourcing countries for US companies. One of the main reasons —the population has a very good English proficiency compared to other countries in the region, since English is the country’s second official language. The working culture has many similarities to that of the Western countries, which means easy employee adaptation, while the hourly rates are relatively low.
English level: High (27th place in EF English Proficiency Index).
Min. hourly rate: $27.
Time zone: GMT +8.
South America: Mexico, Brazil
Latin America is one of the most popular outsourcing regions for US companies: same time zones allow offshore and in-house employees to work during the same hours, while the costs of hiring might be almost five times lower than in the US.
Mexico, the US southern neighbor, is only a few hours away by plane, which makes it the best choice to hire offshore developers if you plan to have regular offline meetings. There are plenty of skilled professionals working with Java, Python, Ruby and other programming languages. Significant drawback — the country’s population proficiency in English is quite low.
English level: Very low (82nd place in EF English Proficiency Index).
Min. hourly rate: $35.
Time zone: GMT -7…-5.
Brazil is the sixth most crowded state in the world, and its talent pool of developers reaches almost half a million. The country currently holds third place in the Global Digital Innovation Index, but low English proficiency might be a setback when hiring staff for a US company.
English level: Low (53rd place in EF English Proficiency Index).
Min. hourly rate: $30.
Time zone: GMT -5…-2.
Ways to hire developers
Having reviewed the best countries to recruit developers for a competitive price, let’s talk about recruiting practices.
Recruitment Agency
Hiring a headhunting agency is one of the easiest ways to find developers for your project and one that comes to mind first. Handling the recruitment process to a specialized company lights your load and lets you focus on other tasks at hand. A good agency has already an established name on the market, which makes prospective employees consider incoming job proposals more carefully; the agency’s staff has experience of the whole recruitment process, from writing appealing job advertisements to executing initial interviews. However, this path is one of the priciest — after all, you’re hiring a whole team to search for talents for you.
Pros:
- The agency handles every stage of recruitment.
- Only high-quality candidates, pre-screened and interviewed, reach the point when employer needs to interact with them.
Cons:
- Expensive: agency’s commission for each talent might be as high as 25% of the worker’s annual salary.
- Not fast: usually, a headhunting process takes from 14 to 35 days.
Job Board
If you want to be completely involved in the hiring process and save money, it might be a good start to post your offer on several job portals. There are many websites, from general job boards, such as Indeed or LinkedIn Jobs, and remote-only (Remotive.io, WeWorkRemotely), to more specifically focused services, such as AngelList, which caters primarily to digital startups. Usually, posting a job advertisement on such services is completely free, unless you decide to pay for premium features: top position in searches, special design, etc. However, this option doesn’t come without downsides. Since anyone can apply to your position, there will be many applications, but without any quality control, and you will have to spend time on candidates’ evaluations.
Pros:
- Completely free or cheap.
- You keep control over the entire recruitment process.
Cons:
- Requires a lot of work: no filter of incoming applications quality.
- Your job post competes for attention with a multitude of likely similar posts.
- Varying time to hire: it is not unusual to find someone in a matter of days, but sometimes it takes a while (20-30 days) to fill a position.
Referrals
Hiring people through a network of professional connections is a good way to get credible talent to your team. Since the referred developer has already worked with their referral, the referral can offer valuable insights, and you might even skip an initial screening and interview at all. What do you need to recruit people through referrals? A brief and interesting job description and knowing people. The last thing might be a difficult if you are a newbie to an industry or work in a remote geographical location.
Pros:
- Provides highly credible candidates with a proven track of records.
- Inexpensive. It can be entirely free, or you can set up a simple referral program among your company’s employees with cash or non-cash incentives.
Cons:
- Limited talent pool: your job offer can reach only candidates who know you through a person or two.
- The recruitment process can take time, if, for example, a referred developer is currently busy on another project.
Freelance Networks
Hiring freelancers instead of full-time employees can be preferable if you need developers for a single or short-term project. This way you’re not obliged to keep workers on board between projects and many freelancers can agree on relatively low rates since they work on multiple projects at once. Thankfully, there are many online services connecting employers and freelance communities. Platforms such as Fiverr, YouTeam, Upwork, and other freelance networks are good choices to look for developers for a project because they screen candidates’ profiles and provide reviews from former employers.
Pros:
- Provides credible talents with feedback.
- Quick and convenient hiring. Many platforms also handle the payment process.
Cons:
- In many cases, a freelance worker will not be as involved with your project as a full-time employee, which might be a downside if your tasks require a creative approach and complete dedication.
- Might be expensive. Usually, an employer pays a fee to post job ads or a platform deducts a commission if a freelancer pays through its services. It is important to choose a network that keeps the balance between its fees and talent pool quality.
Developers Forums
Websites popular among the developer community, such as Stack Overflow, GitHub and Indiehackers might also help in finding talents for your project. Set up a profile with up-to-date details on your company and current offerings, make posts with a brief job description and be active in ongoing conversations. By the way, some of the forums provide specialized pages for talent hunting, more or less similar to job boards.
Pros:
- Your job ad will be seen by a highly targeted audience of active developers.
- You can contact prospective employees directly, saving time and money on commissions and fees.
Cons:
- There are no guarantees of successful hiring. After all, people visit forums to share knowledge and learn something new in the first place, not to find a job.
- Requires the company to have its own HR department, since every application has to be screened and evaluated.
Company’s ‘Career’ Page
If the name of your business already holds some ‘weight’ in the market, there is a quick way to find new talents — set up a dedicated page on the corporate website with job listings. Of course, you will have to conduct screenings and interviews, but why pay commissions to third-party services, if you know for sure there are people who want to work for you?
Pros:
- Completely free and allows you to present current vacancies and your company in a multitude of creative ways, which is not that easy on other platforms.
Cons:
- If your business is not well known, there might be only a handful of candidates.
- The company needs to set up its own HR department for candidates’ screening and evaluation.
Social Media
It is a well-known fact that today many hirings happen on social media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. This approach has many similarities to searching through referrals and setting up a company’s career page — if you or your company’s social accounts have many connections, open positions can be filled within days.
Pros:
- Social media posts are free.
- Can be a quick way to hire talents if your accounts have a large number of subscribers and friends.
Cons:
- If you have a limited social exposure, the talent pool might be small.
- There are no guarantees of application quality; evaluation and screening are required.
Final Thoughts
Since code can be written from anywhere, when hiring programmers you have the whole world in the palm of your hand. Searching for talents in other regions may prove beneficial in terms of quality-value ratio, although time zone and cultural differences can require some time to streamline the working processes.
As to which services to choose for hunting talents it all comes to the balance between money and time you are willing to spend, and level of candidate’s expertise. While hiring agencies can filter applications and interview candidates, their rates may be too high for small startups; in this case, there are plenty of job boards and freelance networks focused on offshore hiring and IT industry.
If you want to completely lift the weight of headhunting from your shoulders, trust the app development process to a specialized company. Such companies have established development practices, employ skilled professionals and have a wide network of talents, should your project require any other specialists.
We at Surf develop cross-platform apps on Flutter and have many satisfied clients. You can trust us the development of you app from the first prototype to the finished product and would not have to think about developers recruitment and other staff-related issues.
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