Sixteen months ago I was working remotely from my hometown in Poland as a programmer. I would have never guessed that a year and half later, I would be opening a new office here for Tivix, recruiting a team, and managing ten great engineers. People often ask me how I recruited and hired such an amazing team. Most of our team members have Masters' Degrees in Computer Science, but that alone doesn't guarantee that they will be a fit for Tivix. 

I thought I’d post the three things I’ve found to be important. Remember, I am not HR specialist and I not experienced recruiter. I am just programmer who has found what I find to be a very successful approach to hiring more top-notch programmers.

Job Posting

First step is simply to create a job post and put on various websites, forums etc. Describing the company is important – what it does, who are you looking for and why someone would like to join you. Apply a filter right away by asking candidates to, when they respond to your post, mention their favourite ice cream flavor or movie or something like that in the cover letter. You will find that more than half of responses do not include this (some don't even include a cover letter at all!). Do not even read these responses. If someone is too lazy to actually read your posting, why would you hire them?

Ask friends for referrals

From my experience best candidates comes from your professional circle. Ask your friends if they know someone that might be interested in the position. Maybe you know someone or you worked with couple years ago who might be perfect fit to your team. Setup a meeting, but nothing formal – a pub will be better than the office.

Talk, just talk (Spirit)

When you receive candidates responses, ask them for meeting. Skype is good, but face to face is even better. Reserve at least one hour for each person. Talk about everything, not only the job. Do not interrogate, do not test his or her skills (yet), do not talk about salaries. In this first meeting, I'm just looking for signs as to whether this person culturally and intellectually a good fit to our team. Because even with awesome skills your team you won’t be successful without good chemistry.

Talk, even more (Skills)

When you choose best candidates, let them talk with specialists in your team. This is the time to check all their skills, experience they have, previous projects they have worked on etc. After these interviews one should be able to determine strong and weak skills of each candidate. You are looking for an open-minded, quick learning person that is not afraid of new challenges. You can feel this even without any words being spoken – they sometimes have that sparkle in their eyes. Remember that new candidates should be also liked by the rest of the team. Create one more “get acquainted” meeting with the team. Listen to their feedback, because they will work together – hopefully for years to come.
 

Talk and sign (Salary)

At this stage you are sure that candidate is perfect fit to your team and have best possible skills. Salary should be your last step. Remember that great engineers are worth every penny.

Final thought

This is the sequence that I have found to be successful:

Spirit ➡ Skills ➡ Salary

First filter for personality fit, then filter for skills, and finally filter for economics. By doing it this way, I’ve been able to build a high-performing team of really smart people who genuinely enjoy working together and making clients happy.