The shortage of software engineering talent is real. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear or read about a startup lamenting how hard it is to find strong technical talent to join their team. It isn’t that there aren’t people out there looking for jobs. As a startup, it’s especially important that the engineers on staff are smart and get things done.
Recruiting technical talent is an especially tough nut to crack as engineers are typically introverted making them less likely to reach out to people to learn about new career opportunities, talent is in such high demand that employers already coddle their IT departments, and there’s real uncertainty in the type of overall work experience when switching jobs.
Here are some ideas to get better at recruiting technical talent:
- Build a strong corporate culture and a super opinionated engineering culture (High Groove has the best content I’ve seen on their engineering culture)
- Offer a best-in-class work environment and benefits (Pardot has a full-time, on site massage therapist)
- Engage with recruiters that are aligned with your culture and represent your brand well
- Organize a recruiting process that can offer top technical talent a job offer on the same day of their interviewing (e.g. do 3-4 hours of interviews with an offer at the end on the spot)
- Develop a results only work environment (ROWE)
- Participate and sponsor all the relevant local tech meetups
Cracking the nut on recruiting technical talent is a tough, long term proposition. Expect 6-12 months of hard work and serious investment to see results. In the end, the quality and quantity of talent on your team is going to seriously influence your level of success.
What else? What are some other ideas to recruit technical talent?
David Cummings on Startups 
Thanks for the referral to High Groove’s site. I like the Etsy (http://codeascraft.etsy.com) and Github (https://github.com/blog) blogs and presentations too. Both have opinionated engineering cultures.
Reblogged this on Siddharth Ram and commented:
A Worth Read 🙂
As an entrepreneur in college, it is especially tough to find technical talent. We have an engineering school that has very skilled students who have never even had a job. Talking and building relationships with them while communicating the benefits of working for a start-up can pay real dividend down the road. Look for tech clubs around town and they are sure to be there!