Building Great Software Engineering Teams: Recruiting, Hiring, and Managing Your Team from Startup to Success

by Josh Tyler

An enlightened approach to recruiting includes the following: Recruiting is a first-order company and business priority, equivalent to (or even ahead of) building the product, booking sales, or anything else you consider highly important. Recruiting never takes a back seat. Your company is committed to building expertise in recruiting. Rather than looking to outsource a solution, you invest the time and resources necessary to develop deep knowledge, skill, and intuition about recruiting through your organization. You may (and probably should) engage with external parties for education and help, but never as a complete substitute. No short cuts. You value and reward individual contributions to the overall recruiting effort. These rewards may take the form of referral bonuses, consideration in performance reviews, recognition in public settings, or others. However you choose to do it, you should make sure that everyone considers a contribution to recruiting something to be celebrated and part of doing a great job. Everyone is involved in recruiting. Everyone. Each department or team in your company should have an idea of how they can help. Recruiting is an integral part of your company culture. It may even appear in your mission statement or goals. You hire people who care about recruiting and will be enthusiastic about helping you do it better. For each prospective hire, you consider their ability to attract, directly or indirectly, more great people to the company. You’re ...