5 Things to Know While Hiring a Java Developer
The best way to hire Java developers is to have close interactions with the development team.
Hiring a Java developer that suits your project really well is somewhat of a technical challenge. Dmytro Vezhnin, CEO And Co-Founder, CodeGym.Cc, says it requires close interaction with the development team, as well as experience, care, and understanding of the nature of such specialists.
When I started my main project, I hired all the employees myself, and now I’m ready to share my experience with Java development teams’ HR managers.
It’s kind of hard work that takes experience to find a good programmer. Or just random luck. Of course, let’s not rely too much on fate: the risks are great.
However, your own experience can be fully supported by the experience of specialists who have been hiring longer than you. In this article, we’ll identify a few things to look out for if you’re looking for a productive Java developer and want to keep them on the team for the long haul.
Not only experience
The requirements for vacancies usually include the experience needed and a list of technologies that the applicant needs to know. Undoubtedly, they are very important, and it is difficult to overestimate them. Especially if your project is urgent, and a specialist needed to be found yesterday. Sure, all projects are individual, but cool specialists have something in common pretty often. We’re not just talking about an experience or specific knowledge.
I had little experience, and they liked how I communicated with them and told them about my plans. Honestly, I didn’t even have the technical part of the interview. They asked me what I did at my previous job and their plans for the future, and they told me about their project and plans. That’s it,” says Alexey, Java Trainee Developer, who previously worked as a support team specialist. Alex was hired because the team liked him and showed himself at the first stage as a person who knows how and wants to learn.” says Alex, Java Trainee Developer, who previously worked as a support team specialist. Alex was hired because the team liked him, and he showed himself at the first stage as a person who knows how and wants to learn.
Our team has several specialists, both HR managers and developers, who hire Java specialists. Here we have given a few important points to help you find the right person faster
Not only write, but also read!
Of course, any Senior can read someone else’s code. However, for Junior, it could be a problem. This skill is often underestimated, alas! This is an important skill for any programmer, especially for a Java specialist. Why Java, you might ask. The fact is that very often; Java is used for large Enterprise projects with hundreds of specialists. They’ve been supported for years and written by developers of various skill levels. Also, if a project is maintained for more than ten years, it has a lot of legacy code that is not easy to read. Coming up with tasks for reading code in an interview is not so difficult.
Inaccuracy, fuzziness, uncertainty
These three words haunt any developer throughout his\her life as a programmer. A formulated task, alas, is most often found only while learning. The further the customer is from IT; the blurrier your tasks will be. Sometimes they are so terrible that even project managers don’t understand them. So, the ability to keep up, not get lost, and boldly navigate poorly formulated tasks is a unique skill for a Java developer. I often give applicants assignments with intentionally left spaces. The difficulty of the task depends on the level for which he claims.
It’s important to see how the person will respond to these gaps. It is best if they quickly notice them and ask clarifying questions. In this case, they most often get the expected result. In the worst case, the applicant tries to think out the missing points on his\her own and, as a result, gets something completely different from what the interviewer expects and, in the future, the customer. Here we check several points at once – the ability to see the missing information, ask the right questions and work in a team. If a person is unsure about questions, this can greatly slow down the entire team’s work.
This is something new! What should I do??
Even a very trained programmer can always face a completely unfamiliar task. A good programmer can find solutions to problems that he\she has not encountered before.
The attitude to an unfamiliar task will reveal the ability to ask the right questions and navigate in an uncertain situation. Most often, if a person at an interview says, “I don’t know this, I haven’t come across this”, it’s not the best sign.
It’s much better if they say, “I haven’t experienced this, but I assume that you need to do this for such and such a reason.” Especially if their assumption is correct, but even if their guess is not the best one, it can demonstrate “a developer courage”, a very valuable quality indeed.
Soft skills
Looking for help or do it yourself? The truth is somewhere in the middle
In terms of communication in a team, there can be two unpleasant extremes that interfere with work. The first extreme is when a person struggles with a problem for weeks without trying to get help from teammates who may have already successfully solved similar problems. The second extreme, on the contrary, is if a programmer constantly strains and distracts colleagues before thinking about solving the problem on their own or looking for information in open sources. To weed out such candidates, you can directly ask how long a person will be doing something that doesn’t work out before turning to teammates for help. Also, take into account the results of the previous two points. If a candidate has solved a fuzzy problem without specifying the conditions, most likely, he\she will struggle with it for weeks. If a candidate asks many unnecessary questions, that probably means he\she most likely belongs to the second group.
1. Soft skills. What about your ex?
It is also helpful information on how the candidate speaks about previous employers. We are not talking about “never scold the past employer”; almost all adequate applicants know about this, and even if they want to smash the “ex” to smithereens, they will most likely keep silent. If developers speak honestly, you can understand what they were unsatisfied with in the previous work. Based on this, it can be assumed whether the candidate will be satisfied with your company’s conditions.
See More: Java or Python: Which One Should a Data Scientist Learn?
2. Soft skills. What about tolerance?
Working in a team may be more important than having specific skills. Moreover, Java teams are usually huge and heterogeneous. In them, you can meet people of different ages, nationalities, and gender. So if a developer is biased toward one of the people categories, it can poison teamwork. It is necessary to find out the tolerance of a person with the delicacy of a good psychologist. I sometimes gently provoked the applicant in the following way: I showed him\her a funny amateur code that is very easy to optimize and said something like: “Here, look, this slipped through in production. Nothing strange, a young girl\old person \developer from India wrote this”. Next, I appreciate the reaction. Sometimes I carefully ask leading questions, like whether someone has come across such groups of developers. If applicants willingly pick up this topic, most likely, the templates in their heads won’t improve the atmosphere in the team. However, be very careful with this method. If applicants pass the test, be sure to tell them that it was just a test.
Applicants are in constant active search: be careful!
My experience also shows that candidates who have changed jobs frequently will want to leave you fairly quickly. Consider this if your project takes much time to dive into and you want to invest company resources in long-term employment relationships with employees. However, if such nomad candidates suit you in other parameters, take a closer look at them. Try to find out what they want from work. They may be idealists and try to find a project that will please them. I had a friend who constantly changed projects and did it not because of money. Everything changed when he got into a team engaged in a complex science-intensive project, which is tough for most experienced developers but suits him just right. He found what he was looking for and immersed himself in the project.
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