The shift to remote work is becoming increasingly popular and with it, the need to hire remote developers to work on software projects is on high-demand. Hiring remote developers can save time and money, and allows for more flexibility in team collaboration. However, there are some important considerations to keep in mind before deciding to hire remote developers for a software project - compared with "Hiring Agencies".

Pros

1. Cost Savings

Hiring remote developers can be more cost-effective than hiring in-house developers. This is because you don’t have to pay for office space, benefits, or other overhead costs associated with in-house employees. Furthermore, there are many low-rate developers with high quality professional skills in developing countries (India, Israel, Vietnam, Philippines...)

2. Access to a Global Talent Pool

When you hire remote developers, you have access to a much larger pool of talent than you would if you only hired locally. This can give you access to highly-skilled developers that you may not have been able to find locally. Toptal, Upwork, Fiverr are some famous talent recruitment services.

3. Increased Flexibility

Remote developers are often more flexible than in-house developers, allowing you to work around their schedules. This can be especially beneficial when working on tight deadlines or when you need to make changes quickly. 24/7 IT services, that hire employees round-the-clock to ensure the continous support operation, are the highlighted case.

Cons

1. Communication Challenges

One of the biggest challenges of hiring remote developers is communication. It can be difficult to keep everyone on the same page, especially when there are multiple time zones involved.

Tips: 
- Setup an effective communication channel, ex: Slack, Team
- Schedule daily/weekly meeting to discuss blockers, difficulties and resolve unclear issues
- Setup a project management tool to create tasks/issues, log time and estimate effort and plan ahead.

2. Security Risks

When you hire remote developers, there is always a risk of security breaches or data leaks. It’s important to make sure that all remote developers have secure access to the project and are following all applicable security protocols.

Tips: 
- Setup a secure mechanism to access servers, 3rd party service accounts, and credentials, ex: VPN, IP whitelisters
- Use organization emails for work-related activities.

3. Lack of Oversight

It can be more difficult to manage remote developers than in-house developers, as you won’t be able to physically monitor their progress. This can lead to delays or missed deadlines if the developers are not held accountable.

Tips:
- Only hire RESPONSIBLE developers
- Setup time-tracking tool with developers in the first few months to track their activities and give them more freedom later on.
- Use Merit Pay: Rate ~ Performance.

Now that we’ve discussed the pros and cons of hiring remote developers, let’s look at how you can do it.

Steps to Hiring Remote Developers

1. Define Your Needs

Before you start the hiring process, it’s important to define the skills and experience you’re looking for in a remote developer. This will help you narrow down your search and make sure you’re targeting the right candidates.

Ex: Job title is "a senior Python/Django developer for a coin trading"
- Skills: Python/Django/Celery
- Experience: 
    * 5 years working experience in Python/Django
    * 2 years working experience with background tasks with Celery and Redis/RabbitMQ
    * 1-2 years working experience with coin trading
    * Ability to write Clean Code and refactor code 
    * Ability to apply best practices to the current project
    * Ability to write unit/integration tests
    * Tasks: (write your expected tasks here)

2. Source Candidates 

Once you’ve defined your needs, you can start sourcing potential candidates. You can use online job boards, recruiting agencies, or even your own network of contacts to find potential developers.

Ex: Toptal, UpWork, Fiverr

3. Screen Candidates

Once you’ve identified some potential candidates, it’s time to start screening them. This can include phone interviews, video calls, or even coding tests. Make sure to ask questions that will give you a good understanding of the candidate’s skills and experience.

Tips:
- Use Codility to create technical tests, this ensures the developer skills
- Ask some problem-solving questions to test their skills in some difficult/urgent situations
- Ask what they do when they are free, this would mean a lot about personality. Ex: if a developer uses his free time to read blog article, this means he is always learning, which is good in general.

4. Offer the Position

Once you’ve identified the right candidate, it’s time to make an offer. Make sure to include all the details of the position, such as the salary, benefits, and any other perks.

5. Onboard the Developer

After the candidate has accepted the offer, it’s time to onboard them. Make sure to provide the tools and resources they need to get up and running quickly, such as access to the project, communication tools, and any other software they may need.

Things to check:

1. Email setup
2. Communication channel setup
3. Project management tool setup
4. Application access grant (both PROD and DEV environments)

Conclusion

Hiring remote developers can be a great way to save time and money, and access a larger pool of talented developers. However, there are some important considerations to keep in mind, such as communication challenges, security risks, and lack of oversight.