How to Hire and Manage a Remote Web Developer?

Are you looking to hire a remote web developer?

You have a strategic web development project that you need to undertake. You need to onboard a developer or two to supplement the skill sets held by your permanent team, i.e., a developer with the blockchain expertise you lack.

It’s taking too long to get developers in your local area, and your project is getting delayed.

Does this scenario sound familiar? If so, then you need to onboard a remote developer.

This guide on how to hire and manage a remote web developer is exactly what you need to show you how to do just that.

Take the following steps to hire and manage a remote web developer:

1. Decide whether you should really hire a remote web developer for your project

Remote work is increasingly popular. A CAREERFOUNDRY report states that 73% of teams will have remote workers by 2028.

For decades, remote work has become a reality in the software development industry. That doesn’t mean that all software development teams can have remote positions though. 

Imagine that you have a very high-visibility project at hand. Senior-most leaders in your organization are checking its progress daily.

Imagine that you are developing a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) software system where there are many unknowns.

Such projects typically have very fluid requirements. Your development team must work very closely with end-users and business stakeholders.

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Often, end-users will change requirements after seeing prototypes. You want software engineers co-located with your larger team in such projects.

Not all projects can accommodate remote work. Analyze your project and decide if you can have remote positions.

2. Choose a hiring approach

You want to hire web developers for your project, therefore, you won’t opt for outsourcing your project. That leaves the following 3 options to hire software engineers:

Hiring web developers from a freelance platform

You might think of hiring freelancers from one of the many freelance platforms. You can post your job requirements. Subsequently, you will receive applications. You can interview candidates and hire a suitable programmer.

Your job postings receive high visibility on large freelancer platforms. You might be able to negotiate a low hourly rate.

However, freelancer platforms don’t offer project management support. You need to manage the work of part-time freelancers, which can be hard.

Time zone differences make it harder. Imagine yourself being located in New York or Seattle, and having to manage part-time freelancers in Ukraine!

You also need to find replacements in the case of turnovers. We don’t recommend this option for high-visibility, complex web projects.

Using job boards and job alerts to hire

You can post your job requirements on popular job boards. Well-known job boards have excellent reach. Programmers with years of web development experience might apply for your job.

You need to manage the hiring process including interviews.

You can find full-time developers on job boards, which is an advantage. Job boards don’t offer project management support though. You need to find a replacement if the web developer leaves your project mid-way.

Hiring from a reputed software development company

We recommend this option for complex projects with high visibility. Many reputed companies provide competent software engineers in addition to end-to-end software development services.

You can find full-time developers with skills and experience.

Well-known software development companies regularly encourage their programmers to upskill. Therefore, you will find their software engineers highly motivated.

Trustworthy software developers provide project management support. This helps your product managers to focus on the important business aspects.   

Reputed software development companies implement comprehensive data security practices. They keep the sensitive information of your company safe. Finally, they provide replacements in the case of turnovers.  

3. Provide the hiring requirements to the software development company

Provide the complete hiring requirement to a trustworthy software development company. Include the following:

Company profile, job title, job type, etc.

Talk about your company. Elaborate on the work culture and professional development opportunities. Describe the compensation and the very competitive benefits you offer, and talk about the perks.

Indicate the level of experience you need. Describe the project, e.g., e-commerce development, building a social media platform, etc.

Explain the importance of the project at hand. Elaborate on how remote web developers will contribute to the success of the company.

Skill requirements for UI developers

The front-end web development skill requirements in your project depend on your organizational and business requirements.

Some organizations might prefer Dot Net developers, whereas others might want JavaScript programmers.

Specify your skills requirements for user interface (UI) developers, e.g.,

Content management systems (CMSs) like WordPress;

• C#, and VB.Net;
• JavaScript, HTML, and, CSS;
• HTML5, and CSS3;
• Popular libraries like jQuery;
• Well-known front-end frameworks like Angular and ReactJS.

You can use well-written job description (JD) templates like our JavaScript JD template to create your job posting.

Skill requirements for back-end developers

Your organizational and business requirements determine the technology you will use for back-end development. One organization might hire PHP developers, however, another organization might want JavaScript developers.

The following technologies are good for back-end development:

• JavaScript;
• Java;
• PHP;
• Python, including Django;
• Ruby;
• ASP.NET.

The JavaScript ecosystem is a great choice for back-end development. You can use Node.js, an open-source runtime environment for JavaScript.

Node.js enables you to create scalable and performant web apps. A vibrant developers’ community has created excellent open-source frameworks and tools for Node.js, which improve productivity.

You can use the MEAN stack, which caters to both front-end and back-end development. The acronym MEAN stands for MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, and Node.js.

The MERN (MongoDB-Express.js-React-Node.js) stack is another option.

Your preferred cloud computing platform

You will likely use a cloud computing platform to expedite your web development project. Managed cloud services providers (MCSPs) like AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, etc., take care of the cloud infrastructure.

They provide computing resources with flexible pricing models like “pay-as-you-go” (PAYG). This helps start-ups significantly since they don’t need to invest in big-ticket IT infrastructure.

MCSPs provide important services like storage, databases, AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities, analytics, DevOps tools, etc.

You can use an IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) or PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) platform. Your hired software engineers should be familiar with your choice of a cloud platform.

Skill requirements for API development

Your project will likely involve API development. Look for remote web developers with experience in API development. You should look for the following skills:

• Knowledge of RESTful API development since REST (Representational State Transfer) is the de-facto standard in API development;
• In-depth understanding of web services;
• The experience of using cloud platforms to host APIs;
• Sound knowledge of popular open-source SQL databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.;
• Years of experience in popular open-source NoSQL databases like MongoDB, Apache Cassandra, etc.;
• Knowledge of designing API endpoints smartly;
• The capability to secure APIs by using encryption, secure API gateways, etc.;
• Experience in creating effective rules for API requests and responses.

Other software development skills

A remote web developer should have the following other skills:

• Knowledge of software development lifecycle (SDLC);
• Familiarity with software development methodologies like Waterfall and Agile;
• Understanding of important software architecture patterns like microservices, MVC (Model-View-Controller), etc.;
• Familiarity with popular testing and debugging tools to fix bugs;
• Knowledge of prominent operating systems like Windows, Linux, etc.;
• Years of experience in tools like Git;
• Code review experience;
• Familiarity with coding guidelines;
• The ability to align with the web design and architecture-related decisions taken in the project.

Competencies required

Look for the following competencies in a remote web developer:

• Problem-solving skills;
• Communication skills;
• Passion for excellence;
• Commitment;
• Teamwork;
• An ability to see the viewpoint of the end-user.

4. Interview the shortlisted programmers

You will certainly ask key technical questions to judge the level of expertise. We recommend you also ask questions about projects delivered by remote web developers.

Ask them to describe the key challenges they resolved. Explain your project and ask how they would approach it.

Consider asking the following questions:

What steps did they take to build scalable web applications?

• Did they implement the microservices architecture best practices in any project?
• Which key application security vulnerabilities did they mitigate in their projects? How did they mitigate them? Did they resolve security risks like injection, broken authentication, etc.?
• Did the software engineer use modern authentication solutions like multi-factor authentication (MFA)?
• Did the programmer use technologies like encryption, antivirus, next-generation firewalls, etc., while implementing an application security solution?
• Which open-source test automation frameworks did they use?
• How did the programmer utilize the rich querying features of modern SQL databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL?
• Did the developers use MQL (MongoDB Query Language) while utilizing MongoDB in their projects?
• How did the remote web developer collaborate with testers and DevOps engineers to build an effective CI (Continuous Integration)/CD (Continuous Delivery) environment?
• Did the software engineer develop any streaming web application using Node.js?
• What kind of inputs did the programmer provide to software architects?
• How did the developer collaborate with UI designers in any web development project?
• Did the programmer use the “Compliance-as-Code” concept to proactively include security and compliance testing in the CI/CD pipeline?
• Do the programmers have experience with Docker containers?
• Do remote web developers have Kubernetes experience?
• Has the software engineer used modern cloud object storage solutions like Amazon S3?
• Did the remote web developer use Graph QL, a modern data query and manipulation language for APIs?
• Has the programmer used any cloud-native SQL database?  

5. Induct the web developer

You have selected remote web developers after interviewing them, and now you induct them into your team. Do the following:

• Provide the project documentation.
• Explain the project requirements.
• Grant the necessary access to the project’s technical environment including the source code repository.
• Describe the project plan including phases and iterations.
• Introduce the remote developers to your larger team using a video conferencing tool.
• Establish a communication channel, and set up meetings.
• Explain the project schedule, budget, and quality objectives. Grant access to the project dashboard.

6. Manage the work of the new software engineer

Use the Scrum framework to build an effective team including the existing team members and new developers. The Scrum framework helps to execute Agile projects.

Build a “Scrum team”. The project manager (PM) performs the role of “Scrum Master”. A “Product Owner” provides the requirements, and the team estimates them.

The Scrum team schedules the requirements into “Sprints”, i.e., iterations. Scrum teams conduct a “Sprint planning meeting” for this. Ensure the active participation of the remote web developers.

Scrum teams conduct “daily stand-up meetings” to track and resolve project issues. Remote software engineers should participate in this.

Business stakeholders should review a functional product in a meeting called the “Sprint review meeting”. You need to involve the remote developers in this. Business stakeholders approve a sprint in this meeting.

After a sprint, a scrum team conducts a lessons-learned exercise. It’s called the “Sprint retrospective meeting”. Ensure the active participation of the remote programmers.

Finally, involve the remote team when you implement marketing strategies and track the important product development KPIs. Take their inputs when tracking KPIs like story points retired, team velocity points, and sprint burndown.

Final Thoughts

We explained the steps to hire and manage web developers. Do you need more help with your web development project? Contact DevTeam.Space, and a dedicated account manager will explain how we can help.

FAQs on Hiring a Remote Web Developer