Hiring developers can be expensive work, especially those who are experienced, but a lot can be said for not fearing the rookie and hiring junior developers.
Just because a junior developer doesn’t have as much experience as one who is more senior, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are less good at what they do. In fact, some junior developers can be considered the best going for a number of reasons, especially those at Selleo!
We’re about to explain why that’s the case and how you can save money by embarking on your next project with junior Selleo developers. This could really help your next project kick off and keep you within budget, so stay tuned!
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How we ensure code quality on projects?
At the very beginning, it’s important to state that junior developers are not equal when it comes to their skillsets. In each company, the entry skill level can vary, which means some juniors can be considered equal to a regular developer.
As a software development house we believe that mixed-level teams work best. We engage development teams with various skill levels where everybody is focused on delivering the highest quality of service. To ensure it all works seamlessly together we follow mature and battle-tested processes including mentoring, extensive DevPath as well as Scrum methodologies.
Why you Should Consider Hiring Junior Developers
As a developer gets more senior and accrues more experience about their career, their hiring rate goes up. That’s common knowledge. But does more experience necessarily mean a guarantee of better development? We think not.
Let’s take a look at some of the top reasons for hiring junior developers over those more senior than them. There’s more to it than just the financial side of things:
- Cost: of course, cost is the big factor here. It does not take a veteran of the software development world to know that a junior software developer costs less than a senior one. If you want to stick to a tight budget, this is a no brainer.
- Dynamic: a junior software developer is much more likely to have not been weighed down with older, outdated principles and can therefore think on their feet with much greater ease. If you’re looking for versatility and energy, junior software developers are the way to go.
- Time efficiency: because junior software developers are in less demand than those more senior to them, they are likely to have more time on their hands in their less busy schedules and should therefore be able to deliver your work to you in a much quicker time.
- Breed new wisdom in house: we’re not saying that junior software developers are more suggestible than those with more experience but it is fair to say that they are likely to be more open to ideas and therefore could fit into your company’s vibe more easily.
- Passion and curiosity: remember when you first got into the tech industry and were excited and hungry all the time? This doesn’t necessarily fade, but it does manifest itself into something a little more settled. Curiosity drives eagerness and that is something you can really desire from a software developer.
- It’s good for the industry and development culture in general: hiring new blood and helping them to establish themselves in the tech sector helps to drive the scene forward and breeds competition between individuals that is otherwise lacking if the same people are being hired over and over again and others are excluded.
You may not have considered all of these great advantages of hiring a junior software developer over a senior one until this point but it would be hard to argue that they’re not tempting!
However, it’s not just any junior software developer you can hire for a good job. These guys need to have a certain set of credentials to be able to integrate themselves into your business and put a good quality product together for you.
Let’s find out what those credentials could be.
How we Choose New Talents for Our Community
We’re always on the lookout for exciting new tech talent here at Selleo, but we don’t just let anyone through the door. Selleo prides itself in a fine tuned and rigorous hiring process that we are confident brings in the right people. We have got to this point by knowing exactly what it takes to be a good software developer, so let us show you what that looks like.
Before Developers Start Working with Us
Any potential software developer needs to show that they are up for the task, and if they do, they may attend our CoderDojo meetings and classes, as well as University workshops.
This process often lasts a year or longer if they need it, and by the end, they will certainly be in the right position to be an excellent, hirable developer.
Recruitment Workshops
Our candidates go through a workshop session on their way into Selleo, which not only helps us to get a feel for what they are like as a developer and a human being, but also allows them to scope out the culture of the company and see if it is right for them or not.
During these workshops, candidates will meet some of our representatives and tackle problem-solving tasks together. These tasks include building Lego sculptures, answering various bond-building questions and more.
This means that by the time they start working, they already have an attachment to the company as they are sure that they are where they want to be. As well as this, it allows us to check out each candidate to find out whether they are a fit for us, too. Especially on the teamwork side of things.
What is more, we have been recognized for our amazing recruitment process!
Our Brand Heroes Project
We are proud to have been rewarded for our Brand Heroes project, where the Selleo community chooses people who are the most engaged in the Selleo environment through a number of categories. These categories are:
- Kindergarten Player: the ultimate team player. Committed in both heart and mind to supporting other members of the team.
- Community Rockstar: this person uses drive and commitment to energize, engage and inspire others.
- Happiness Officer: a culture of happiness is always one we strive for, and that’s why this person is key. They are welcoming and full of joy.
- Mastery Seeker: always moving forward, innovating and improving their skills, the mastery seeker does not accept second best.
- Tech Evangelist: thinking outside the box and challenging the status quo, this person is looking for new ways to grow all of the time.
- Role Model: everyone needs a role model, and our role model leads with dignity and commands respect.
With at least one of each of these types of people in the Selleo team, we are proud to be able to say that we cover all bases people-wise.
How does the Knowledge Sharing Culture at Selleo Influence Junior Developers?
Focusing on teamwork means sharing knowledge between individual junior developers in the team. This allows those developers to grow as efficiently as possible and learn all of the right skills in the best possible way.
Mentoring
So how do we help our junior developers with sharing knowledge? Our mentoring looks like this.
- We find the right match: to make sure that everybody can carry the teamwork ethos that Selleo prides itself in, we make sure that everybody is going to be able to integrate with a select and boutique hiring process.
- Regular check-ins: to ensure that all members of the team are feeling good and progressing how we would like them to, we make sure that we talk to them regularly.
- Share resources: we always share any suitable articles, videos and other resources that we think would be suitable with our team, and encourage them to do the same.
- Celebrate success: what better way to make a junior developer feel included than to enjoy their moments of brilliance alongside them? Celebrating anyone’s successes is important, but particularly so at a junior level.
- Deliver feedback: alongside celebrating successes, we feel that it is important to give feedback on all work regardless of the quality of it. This is one of the best ways for junior developers to learn and to grow.
Our Values
Throughout the learning process at Selleo, our junior developers will be taught about and reminded of our four key values to go by as they develop themselves. Holding these values ensures that everybody is on the same page and delivering their best work:
- Passion: we tell our junior developers that demonstrating their passion in their craft inspires others to grow with them.
- Integrity: being trustworthy means that people can rely on you. Integrity also means staying true to our values at all times when working for Selleo.
- Respect: differences of opinion are natural. In fact, we encourage them so that we can learn together with a more open mind. The best way to handle these differences of opinion is, of course, with respect for one another.
- Mastery: strong performance is key, and it also involves completing one task to the best of your ability before moving onto something completely new. This way, we only get the very best out of our junior developers.
We are also big advocates of company-wide transparency. You can read more about it in the post How Does Company Transparency Leverage Co-Workers’ Happiness?.
The Benefits
Now that you know a little more about what we do at Selleo in terms of our hiring process, and who we look for in a junior developer, let’s check out what benefits this has to Selleo as a company and to any clients who decide to work with us.
- Skill improvements: through training, mentoring, and all of the things that come with these, we’re confident that our junior developers end us as some of the best in the game.
- Learning best practices: by holding four key and easy to understand values close to us, we make sure that everybody can stay on the same page and therefore showcase the rest of our best practices.
- Feedback: an open discussion is not just from senior developers or management to junior developers. A culture of feedback is encouraged all round so that everybody can grow together.
- Better team spirit: Motivation comes with good energy. And this brings about the best quality work. It really is that simple, and this is why a good team spirit is so important.
- Professional growth: of course, we wish for all of our junior developers to have strong careers in software development and become senior as they go. We will do everything we can to support them as they go about their journeys.
Here at Selleo, we always work in teams that are usually collocated in one location. This positively influences the culture of information sharing between developers, as well as the practice of pair-programming.
Our junior developers are able to contact anyone in the team easily, including more senior developers. This means that they can save time on any problems that they have and leaves them feeling inspired and assisted.
If there’s no particular expert available at the time, it’s in our practice that an expert from another team will be willing to help. At Selleo, there is always someone at the end of the line.
Selleo DevPath: A Learning Process that Works
Our DevPath initiative is a training methodology that we put all of our junior developers through. It’s tried and tested, and we’re confident that it has the best results in the industry.
We have been developing our DevPath for a couple of years now and it is constantly adapting and evolving to be able to stay on top. Plus, we’re doing this openly so that everybody who joins knows exactly what to expect from it. Here are some key features:
- Our clients make use of it: we’re gathering all of the crucial knowledge in one place,
- Each developer delivers value: because everybody is involved in our DevPath from start to finish, they’ll be able to learn all of the key information and not miss out on anything. Plus, we encourage everybody to share what they learn so that everybody else can learn those things too.
- Code retreats meetings: monthly, we hold a meeting called Haxorz where we share knowledge and good practices that we are learning and working on together with our whole community.
- Equal access for all: everybody involved on our DevPath has access to books, courses, certificates, workshops and conferences.
- Invitations to conferences: and speaking of conferences, we actively participate in initiatives such as Meet.js/CoderDojo/BBDays4IT, and encourage our junior developers to join us in doing so.
How Our Values and Best Practices Ensure a Smooth Delivery
So, that’s all of the important information about our recruitment processes and why junior developers can be awesome if they are trained in the right culture and by the right people. But how does this benefit the client in terms of the delivery of the product?
- Fast contact: thanks to our use of Agile methodologies such as Scrum, and other parts of our regular contact such as our daily meetings, our clients will have direct contact and access to each developer so that they can reach out at any time.
- Transparency: this constant communication has the benefit of transparency for the client so that they know what is going on at each and every stage of the project. Therefore, everybody can react quickly if something unpredictable happens.
- Evaluation: we regularly ask clients to evaluate the teams so that we can improve the level of our services from iteration to iteration of the project.
So, if you are looking for any or all of these three benefits with your next project, it might be time to consider recruiting a junior software developer or two to get involved in it with you.
Conclusion
Now that you know the benefits of junior software developers and have an understanding of how good they can be here at Selleo, why not reach out for a consultancy to find out how we can specifically help you?
We’ve helped tonnes of clients with top-tier projects of all kinds of varieties with our junior software developers. In fact, we have so much trust in them that we often recommend them for particular projects ahead of more senior developers, such is their nature.
These guys could really be the difference between your next project being more of the same or it really standing out from the crowd thanks to some amazing, individual design work.
Thanks to our recruitment programme, there are a whole bunch of developers waiting to help you out on your next project. And who knows? It really could be something special. We look forward to speaking to you at Selleo!
