
When are you developing enterprise applications, there are numerous factors to think about, such as time, features, testing, user experience, and functionality. Each aspect of an application needs to work correctly.
To produce the most efficient and powerful software, it’s important to hire experienced and competent software engineers. But going through the hiring process can be difficult. In addition to sorting through a large pool of candidates, a dilemma that every employer faces is whether they should hire a contractor or a full-time engineer. Let’s look at some factors one should consider before hiring contract engineers.
1. Job Experience
When you have to choose between two candidates, one with experience and one without, it is obviously prudent to opt for the former, especially if you are on a shoestring budget and have no time to train new employees. Experience can be a differentiating factor to consider when you are hiring contract engineers. If the candidates have a proven track record in similar jobs, they’ll probably be able to replicate that success at your company, too.
But experience is not the sole criterion. While you make sure to consider experience, don't prioritize it over all the other factors.
2. Hard Skills
Hard skills reflect the skills acquired by the applicant either at their educational institution or at past jobs. They are measurable and easy-to-define skills that will enable you to judge the applicant. It's hard to overlook them, since they are indispensable to the job that they are being hired for.
In the absence of the right skills, special training has to be arranged for the candidate. For instance, you may need to teach the applicant a specific software language, framework, or tool, which is usually not worth the investment with a short-term contractor.
3. Soft Skills
Soft skills reflect the personality of the candidate. Though hard to measure, they are often reflective in the applicant's behavior. Soft skills are less critical when hiring a contract employee than when hiring a full-time employee. However, they become more important depending on the urgency of the development project. An employee with poor soft skills will have a much more negative effect on the team's productivity during crunch time than they will have on a build with a longer timeline.
4. Potential
An experienced interviewer often spots candidates who may not have adequate experience, but possess good educational credibility and potential. For such promising candidates, sometimes it pays to take a chance by hiring them as they might grow into top performers.
As with most things, there are pros and cons associated with each choice. Depending on the needs of your company and expectations from a new employee, their role will shift. Factors like autonomy, company loyalty, and working hours differ between contractors and full-time employees. Nevertheless, the biggest difference between the two is that while a full-time employee can be managed more closely, a contractor exists as a separate and autonomous entity.
Many organizations set up a huge infrastructure and carry out all IT services in-house. They can have much higher research, development, and implementation time, and all of this increases the operational cost. But if the same task is assigned to contractors of a quality IT services organization (such as Crowdbotics), the project could start immediately. Handling the same project in-house might involve weeks or months to hire the right people, train them, and provide the support they need, thereby escalating the cost and duration.
Another advantage in handing projects off to contractors is that you stay focused on your core business without getting distracted by complex IT decisions that can be managed by experienced contractors. Most small and upcoming companies cannot afford to match the in-house support services enjoyed by big companies. By assigning some tasks or entire projects to contract engineers, small companies get an opportunity to act “big” by getting access to technology and expertise similar to larger competitors.
One should examine carefully all the pros and cons before assigning a project to contractors or in-house developers, and make sure that the benefits outweigh the risks.
As there are always pros and cons to each choice, there isn’t always an easy solution. For this reason, it's prudent to consider choosing a path that integrates aspects from both contract and full-time employment.
Companies like Crowdbotics provide contracted, high-quality skilled engineers with proven track records. Crowdbotics focuses on hiring remote resources that operate within the client's time zone, possess verified language skills, and are compatible with the client's work culture. Crowdbotics utilizes a flexible, single contract that enables clients to build virtual teams that adapt to every need in the project life cycle.
This offers a best-of-both-worlds approach to application development. Clients can utilize one developer or hire a whole team to work on their application. While regular app development agencies have to divide their time between their clients, Crowdbotics allocates engineers and teams to clients on a 1-to-1 basis. Clients can manage their projects in any manner that they desire with the support of Crowdbotics’ in-house project managers.
Crowdbotics develops all of its apps in a modern React Native + Django stack, so you don't need to worry about getting stuck with obsolete or poorly built technology. Our solutions can help improve your productivity and growth. Crowdbotics can manage all technical requirements, ranging from back-end infrastructure to front-end design and UI.
Do you need high-quality, scalable, rapid application development? Contact one of our experts today.
Originally published:
August 26, 2020