Imagine slashing your JavaScript development costs by 50% while upgrading your talent pool. This isn’t just a dream for small businesses and startups—it’s the reality of offshore hiring. Unlike local hiring, offshore recruitment gives you access to a wider talent pool, and you can target your specific countries to optimize quality and costs.
While hiring offshore gives you access to competitive pay rates, moving into the global market is harder than it looks, from coordinating different time zones to setting up HR for remote employment.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- Why savvy businesses are tapping into offshore JavaScript talent
- How to access a global pool of developers and hire the best in terms of both quality and cost
- The secret to vetting an experienced offshore Javascript that can help you scale your business
Why Hire Offshore Javascript Talent
Offshore recruitment is an effective strategy for combining low costs and quality delivery, especially for growing businesses and startups. Of course, it has challenges and risks, but tapping the global market has significant benefits in the long run.
Here are 2 key reasons to opt for offshore hiring for JavaScript developers:
- Cost Savings
According to recent stats, developers in the U.S. cost between $60 to $150 per hour. On the other hand, offshore rates in other countries like Asia or Eastern Europe can vary from $15 to $33 per hour. With the right set for the hiring process, offshore recruitment is one of the most effective ways to cut down business costs in the long run.
- Talent Pool & Skill Gap
According to Statista, the global developer population will reach 28.7 million people by 2024, an increase of 3.2 million from 2020. In this scenario, China is one of the countries expected to grow faster, as its growth rate is between six percent and eight percent. This growth is coming mainly from emerging markets, while the global talent shortage reached 40 million skilled workers worldwide.
Most companies struggle to find skilled long-term candidates to run their software operations, especially in the US, and many managers opt for offshore developers to find specialized expertise. Countries like Eastern Europe and Asia have solid technical education systems, and their developers rank as the best in global competitions.
3 Key Steps to Hire Offshore Developers
The first thing to do before tapping into the global Javascript talent pool is to identify your needs. Not only does JavaScript development include various specializations, but it also requires a different organization within your team.
Before starting your interview, it is important to follow 3 essential steps to optimize and secure an effective hiring process.
1. Preparing for Recruitment
Identify Your Needs
Before starting your search, determine:
- Full team vs. individual developer
- Specific JavaScript specializations required
- Project scope and timeline
Do you need a JavaScript development team or a developer to complete your existing team?
Or if you are creating your first mobile app, a full-Stack JavaScript developer is a better choice to optimize with cross-platform mobile applications and ensure quality work. Identifying your need first will allow you to speed up and optimize the following steps of the hiring process.
Research Offshore Markets
The second thing to consider is the geographical area to target. Do you have a fully distributed team with different time zones or a hybrid business? Do you need to integrate one candidate to an existing team located in the same area? Before asking where to look for the best candidates, think of your need to start an effective offshore research market.
Top regions for offshore JavaScript talent:
Best offshore software development countries in the Asia Region
- Pakistan
- India
- China
- Philippines
- Taiwan
In these countries, governments made considerable investments in their digital infrastructures and engineering education. Asia is one of the most affordable areas, and you can find specific expertise and rely on a solid knowledge of the latest trends and tech innovations.
Best offshore software development countries in Latin America
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Colombia
With over 2 million professionals, Latin America’s tech workforce is a fertile pool to look for developers. Especially for US companies, the time zones are convenient and allow hiring full time candidates over time.
Best offshore software development countries in Eastern Europe
- Ukraine
- Romania
- Bulgaria
- Poland
Eastern Europe climbed up global rankings in IT expertise in the last few years. With millions of IT graduates each year, the area offers fresh talent in different fields and expertise.
Consider Hiring Alternatives
While offshore recruitment can reduce costs, it’s often time-consuming and challenging to find the right candidate in a global market. Consider these options to streamline your hiring process:
Popular Platforms:
- TopTal: A large marketplace for developers that offers mediation for disagreements. However, finding specific expertise can be challenging.
- GitHub: Great for discovering talented developers, but lacks post-contract support.
Specialized Agencies:
- DistantJob: Smaller agencies like DistantJob excel in finding specialized candidates, assisting with contracts and labor regulations, and providing access to candidates with proven remote work experience. Furthermore, you can have a closer look at reference and EOR (Employer of Record) solutions, selecting candidates with a proven experience in remote and asynchronous businesses.
Investing on a structured support during the hiring process will help you optomize your costs on the long run, and avoid slowing down your company’s productivity looking for a new candidate.
2. Selection Process
Portfolio Review
A portfolio review is the first step in selecting candidates for the interview process.
Key technical points to consider when hiring JavaScript developers include browser compatibility testing, performance optimization, security awareness, ES6+ proficiency, version control skills, framework expertise, and scalability experience.
Candidates should be adept at ensuring interactive elements work across different browsers, optimizing JavaScript for speed, and following security best practices to avoid vulnerabilities. Proficiency in ES6+ ensures modern and efficient coding practices, while familiarity with version control systems like Git facilitates seamless teamwork. Additionally, expertise in frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue.js is crucial for streamlined development, and experience in building scalable applications is essential to handle growing user loads and data efficiently.
Skills Assessments
How do you assess candidate skills? One of the best strategies when you select 5 possible candidates is to propose a demo test.
You can give new candidates a problem to solve and see their attitude, quality work, and delivery time. Furthermore, it is important to suggest possible scenarios during the interview. Unlike a coding test, during the interview, the candidate will have to answer on the spot, and you will be able to test problem-solving skills alongside technical expertise.
Evaluate Soft Skills
One of the most common mistakes when hiring a JavaScript programmer is not conducting collaborative interviews to test soft skills. This is particularly important if you’re looking for long-term developers who are committed and engaged to your team.
Neglecting to include current team members in the interview process can lead to hiring a candidate who, while technically proficient, may not mesh well with the existing team’s dynamics, values, or work culture.
Conducting interviews that involve potential team members can help ensure the candidate’s alignment with the team’s objectives and collaborative work style.
Here are three interview types to evaluate your candidate:
- Behavioral Interviews: These interviews focus on a candidate’s past experiences and behavior in team settings. You can ask questions about how they’ve handled conflicts, worked with diverse teams, and resolved issues collaboratively.
- Role-Specific Collaborative Tasks: Provide candidates with role-specific tasks that mirror real-world team projects. Assess their ability to work with others, communicate effectively, and contribute to a team’s success.
- Teamwork Simulation Exercises: These exercises involve creating situations that simulate common teamwork challenges. Candidates are evaluated on how they handle team dynamics, communicate, and work towards collective goals in a controlled setting.
3. Post-Hiring Considerations
Establish Secure Payment Methods
After you select your candidate, you can define the payment method.
For example, an employment contract is a better option if you hire a full-time developer. If you need a freelancer, you can agree on delivery and deadlines working with specific invoices.
Hiring offshore has many benefits, but it requires extra work for your HR team. For this reason, relying on a recruitment company can help you understand which is the best format to ensure a fair and secure payment for both sides.
Protect Your Code and Intellectual Property
Finally, it is important to mention how you protect your code and intellectual property to all your candidates before signing the contract. Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), Intellectual Property (IP Rights), and code repository management are necessary tools to protect your company over time. Furthermore, it shows the organization of your company and how candidates work with privacy matters.
Facilitate Onboarding and Collaboration
Hiring a candidate offshore means that you need to establish a clear and inclusive onboarding process.
First, make sure to give a good overview of your company structure and team members in different departments. Working from home can be isolating, and entering in a new company is important to feel connected with the new team to ask questions and feedback.
Make sure to put in place clear communication channels and provide an onboarding toolkit to avoid decreased productivity or delays with delivery.
Ensure Long-Term Quality and Performance
In the same vein, it is necessary to set regular check-ins not only to verify the project status but also to ensure your employees’ well-being. Tools such as Agile and Code Reviews can help you implement communication between different departments to establish regular communication. And tools like Testing, or Performance Metrics give you a common standard to refer to and improve the team structure based on results.
9 Pitfalls to Avoid When Hiring Offshore JavaScript Developers
When recruiting remote JavaScript talent, look beyond technical skills. Consider these crucial factors to ensure a successful hire:
- Browser Compatibility Testing
- Ensure candidates can test across multiple browsers
- Use practical challenges to assess their skills
- Performance Optimization
- Evaluate ability to optimize code and improve loading speeds
- Utilize coding platforms like LeetCode for assessment
- Collaborative Fit
- Conduct team interviews to assess cultural alignment
- Use behavioral interviews and teamwork simulations
- Security Awareness
- Look for developers who prioritize JavaScript security practices
- Ask scenario-based questions about secure coding
- ES6+ Proficiency
- Assess knowledge of modern JavaScript features
- Test ability to refactor older code to ES6+
- Version Control Skills
- Evaluate proficiency with Git and other VCS
- Ask for demonstrations of common version control tasks
- Framework Expertise
- Ensure familiarity with relevant frameworks (React, Angular, Vue.js)
- Use practical exercises to test framework-specific skills
- Soft Skills and Culture Fit
- Assess communication, adaptability, and problem-solving skills
- Consider how they’ll interact with non-technical stakeholders
- Scalability Experience
- Look for experience in building scalable applications
- Inquire about techniques like load balancing and efficient database design
Conclusion
Hiring offshore JavaScript developers requires careful planning and execution. By following these steps, you can build a strong, diverse team that drives your project’s success while effectively managing costs.
Remember, the key to successful offshore hiring lies in clear communication, thorough vetting, and ongoing support for your remote team members. By following the previous steps, you can start building a recruiting and hiring pipeline that allows you to identify talented candidates beyond their shiny resumes or “impressive” experience.
And if you’re still struggling to build the right process, partner with us. At DistantJob, with our headhunting approach, we focus on finding candidates who are the right culture fit for your team and who check all your requirements.
Book a discovery call and learn more about hiring the best remote developers!
