A Complete Guide on How to Hire a Team of Remote Developers

How much does it cost to hire a team of developers? How do I hire a development team? How do I hire a 2023 remote developer? How do you manage a remote team developer? This article discusses the steps to building an effective remote team and helps you understand the benefits of hiring a remote team.

Since the pandemic hit, many companies have had to opt for a remote work culture to keep their businesses productive. If an organization chooses to hire a team remotely, it gets the ability to reach the vast talent pool across the globe and vet qualified candidates for their open positions. It is a huge advantage for companies, as they can hire a dedicated team regardless of where they are.

What does hiring a remote team mean?

Hiring a remote team is the technology-enabled process of identifying, attracting, screening, shortlisting, interviewing, and hiring candidates to fill open positions within your company. A remote dedicated software development team works away from the office the same way as in-house teams. The remote employees may live overseas and work from home.

Why to hire a remote team? The benefits

In a study by Gartner, 74% of companies have plans to embrace a permanent shift to remote work. Another supportive data from McKinsey shows that about 20-25% of the workforce in countries with developed economies has the scope of work from home three to five days a week, which is nearly 400% more remote work than existed before the pandemic.

Remote work aids business success. Employees value flexible timetables, comfortable location, quality time with family & friends, and not commuting in stressful traffic. Companies also benefit from higher employee retention, cost savings, increased productivity, and access to the planetary pool of untapped human potential.

Here's why hiring a remote team is so beneficial -

No geographical limitation

Traditionally, companies were limited by geography when filling open positions. But remote hiring expands the talent pool from the company’s immediate area to worldwide. No matter where the best candidates live, they can now work for the top companies.

Large candidate pool

The old approach was limiting in more than one way; restricting recruitment to local candidates only meant the opportunities for diversity were likewise limited. Remote work, on the other hand, is intentionally inclusive, allowing organizations to recruit the best candidates proactively from around the world.

Cost-effective

Another substantial benefit of remote hiring is the costs. For example, in the US, a local developer's salary is not the same as the new hires from Eastern European countries or Southeast Asian countries. So, when you hire a team remotely, you can pay more reasonable compensation to the best candidate without compromising the developments because they are exceptionally qualified.

Open opportunity

Remote work allows for more unbiased work environments for employees who might have difficulties getting into an office. It helps those who might have been excluded by the constraints of an office, like parents and caregivers, who often feel distorted in taking time off for personal commitments. Also, people with disabilities have struggled with traditional workplaces, but working from home facilitates them with new opportunities. So, companies also get more options to hire people with untapped talents.

Fast scaling

Remote workers, specifically experienced people, are used to the virtual environment. They know the tools and acclimate quickly, prompting a smooth hiring process. The virtual interview process is faster and more effective and helps business scale faster.

Increased productivity

Different studies have found that remote work increases employee productivity and reduces their bottom line.

• American Express found that employees who worked from home were 43% more productive. [Source: Global Workplace Analytics]

• With remote work options, companies like Dell saved $12 million yearly in office space costs. [Source: CNN Money]

• The State of Remote Work 2021 survey shows that 38% of respondents would take a 5% pay cut if it meant they could work remotely at least part-time after the pandemic. [Source: Owl Labs]

Employee satisfaction

Remote-first workplaces play a significant role in making well-paying jobs more accessible. And when companies hire a team remotely, they hire happier and more engaged employees with remote facilities. It provides a direct and evident increase in employee satisfaction and retention.

Steps to building an effective remote team

The entire process begins by reviewing the talents and skills gap you are trying to fill. Start with a clear job description and move through the traditional interviewing phases of hiring a team member.

You don’t need to change much about the hiring process for remote developers, except to ensure you hire a reliable candidate you can trust to govern their time and remain on task without continuous supervision.

Create a comprehensive job description

Job descriptions must be informative to help the potential applicants to understand the role, requirements, and how it is a perfect fit within your organization. While creating a job description, keep these seven things for sure -

1. Right job title
2. Employment type
3. Job overview or summary
4. Responsibilities
5. Required Qualifications
6. Company culture
7. Contact Preferences

Remember, you are looking for a perfect candidate who fits in the company, not just a performer. Include details of your company website, work culture, and why someone might appreciate being a part of your team.

Review resumes and choose the right person

Once you post the job description and CVs start to roll in, you need to review them. The first thing you need to do is to screen and remove low-quality applications.

Sort applicants that meet your requirements and evaluate their candidacy regarding skills and cultural fit. Look for skill sets and new features that match your role and work culture. For remote employees, some of the fundamental qualities to look for during an interview include:

• Long-term potential for support and growth
• Ability to produce results
• Self-starter with the ability to work independently
• Understanding of projects and basic project management skills
• A positive, proactive mindset
• Baseline skills and a good learner
• Experience with similar roles and team structures
• Values that match your company values
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills

Schedule video interviews

Follow the conventional interview and screening steps to hire a remote team with a few tweaks. Instead of a face-to-face interview, you need to schedule video interviews with the shortlisted candidates. Inform the candidates through message or email about the interview program and set up a convenient time for a video call.

Evaluate soft skill sets in a job interview

Start interviewing the candidates as you would do traditionally for an in-house position. You must ensure that the applicants have the skills required for the role and the command over working as a team player in a remote location. To evaluate their ability, you might ask them a few questions -

• How long have they been working remotely?
• If they have worked on similar projects?
• What challenges do they usually face while working remotely? And, how do they address those?
• How do they maintain good communication with the global team?

Clarify practical communication expectations

Since effective communication is crucial for any remote dedicated team, clarify your expectations before hiring a remote employee. If you are recruiting across different time zones, ensure enough technology availability for smoother communication.

Set a management strategy

Remote-first companies should have precise management techniques, interview strategies, and arrangements. While full-time remote workforce management is similar in many ways to in-house employees, you need to set up regular meetings, at least weekly, to follow up with the remote teams and give them a chance to clear their queries and share opinions.

Ask for professional references

Asking for previous project references from a new hire is a good practice. It helps you verify a candidate’s experience, skills, and work ethic. The professional references also testify to their technical and soft skills in a specific work environment.

Make a legal contract

No hiring process is complete or valid without a legal work contract. Prepare the contract to ensure that it covers the scope of work, how work is to be delivered, the project and management essentials of the employee and the compensation details.

Consider the costs, hourly rates, and timeline when hiring for a specific project. Ensure every person in the contract agrees to these details to protect your business from any future distress.

You should make a more precise contract for creative work and advanced projects. Such an agreement may include a decision about licensing of the final product, confidentiality requirements, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), security clauses, etc.

Prepare an offer letter for the selected candidate

Once you find the right person for the job role, make an offer letter explaining the project, compensation, and contract. Apprise the person why he/she is the perfect candidate and why you want him/her to hire specifically, and send it over via email or direct message.

While everyone wants to hire their first choice, the candidate might not accept the offer always. So, shortlist some other good candidates for every project just in case your first choice refuses the proposal.

Discuss compliance and payroll

When the candidate accepts the offer, ask the hiring manager to prepare for all the paperwork and administrative tasks. You should set up payroll for new full-time employees and manage remuneration details for independent talent. Also, hiring a dedicated software development team in other states or countries can have different tax implications and requirements. So, get your Human Resources teams involved right away.

Five tips for managing a remote team

Whether you hire a dedicated team that is fully or partially remote, remote team management must take care of diverse challenges. While you must focus on communication at first, there is more to consider for team building and managing your team.

Schedule regular check-ins

While you should allow remote employees to work autonomously, make sure to stay in continuous connection. Be sure to touch base regularly.

Prepare an easily accessible go-to handbook

Document and share the company strategies and development processes on a centralized site. It helps employees to look for information whenever they need it.

Focus on outcomes, not individual activities

Focus on the entire team performance and the outcome instead of individual employee daily activities. Overall performance assessment enables you to evaluate employees' productivity more efficiently.

Make employees feel connected

Organize entertaining and engaging virtual events to gather the whole team beyond work. It helps build a strong bond between employees and the company.

Build a strategic communication pipeline

Train employees to be responsive online and schedule frequent virtual meetings to share key information with the team.

Сonclusion

Your company no longer needs to be limited to hiring a team locally. You can hire the best candidate from the global talent pool to fit the role when you have a specific need. Remote-first companies are leading the way with service offerings and successes because they know that hiring a remote worker is often the best method to build a great team, fill the skill gaps, and develop amazing products. But hiring your first remote employees, especially those who live outside of your country, can be intimidating. You may be worried about risk, and deciding where to start is hard. And, of course, compliance, taxes, and costs are all daunting tasks.

Turing’s Intelligent Talent Cloud platform leverages global sourcing, intelligent vetting, extensive matching, HR & Payments compliance, and automated on-the-job quality control. It makes your remote dedicated team hiring process easier and more protected. Further, this guide will help you get started, hopefully. One of the best things big to medium or even small business owners can do for their company is to sign up on Turing and hire a dedicated team or independent remote employees. It allows access to an amazing talent pool and provides built-in protections for your company.

Working with Turing means you don’t need to become a remote work expert to access the millions of untapped Silicon Valley software developers.

How can Turing help you through remote team hiring?

Turing is not a simple job board or an outsourcing platform. But Turing’s AI-backed Intelligent Talent Cloud helps companies source, vet, match, and manage the world's best software developers remotely. With Turing, any company can plan, hire and develop a remote software development team.

• Plan: Make informed talent decisions around diversity, a planetary pool of software developers, and more with real-time data.

• Hire: Tell the skills required and get the right candidate matched within 3-5 days from the millions of pre-vetted Silicon Valley caliber engineers.

• Develop: Nurture the employees with learning, engagement, and performance tools with assistance from Turing.

Let’s scale your engineering team with Turing in just 3-5 days.