What Should You Consider When Figuring Out How To Hire a Clojure Developer?
Clojure can be used for a multitude of projects, most commonly web development. If you’re looking for a developer for your projects, you should know the ins and outs of how to hire a Clojure developer.
When hiring for Clojure software development, you’ll need to consider the set of skills for the type of project they’ll be working on. Soft skills and company culture fit should also be important considerations. The real challenge in hiring Clojure developers lies not only in finding the candidates themselves but also evaluating them properly so you know they’ll be up to the job.
Managing all these requirements and procedures to get a Clojure developer can be a daunting task, but we’re here to guide you through this process. By following our guidelines, you’ll be sure to find a top Clojure expert for your projects in no time.
Why Hire Clojure Programmers?
The Clojure programming language offers a wide array of functionality that makes it extremely enticing for modern software development. It is a dialect of Lisp and borrows its syntax based on parentheses and prefix notation. It is also a dynamic and functional language with strong support for concurrency, making it a great option for distributed systems.
Why use Clojure? Hiring Clojure developers gives you the advantage of harnessing the power of this language. Here are its main strengths:
- Simplicity: Clojure is simple and easy to learn, being a great pick for people new to functional programming.
- Performance: Clojure is scalable by design and can handle a large amount of data with ease. It also supports concurrency, allowing developers to build systems that support a wide number of simultaneous users.
- Interoperability: Clojure runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and Clojure applications can run in the same systems as Java does. Besides making applications portable to many platforms, it also makes it an excellent choice for creating applications that interface with others.
- Maintainability: Besides its inherent functional programming approach, which by itself makes code more modular, Clojure also focuses on the concept of immutability, making code less prone to errors.
If you deal in applications that are modern, concurrent systems, then Clojure is the language for your projects. And you’ll need to hire expert Clojure developers to make those applications come to life.
Benefits Of Hiring A Clojure Developer
What is Clojure good for? When you hire a Clojure expert, you’re gaining someone that knows and can apply the strengths of the language. Here are the main advantages you get when hiring a Clojure developer:
- Efficiency: Clojure developers understand how to leverage functional programming concepts like immutability and persistent data structures to write efficient and error-free code.
- Concurrency: Clojure developers have a deep understanding of concurrency and can design and implement highly parallel and distributed systems.
- Flexibility: Clojure developers are proficient in the JVM ecosystem and are able to integrate Clojure with other JVM languages and frameworks.
- Web Development Capabilities: Clojure is widely used in web development, and developers can have a strong grasp of web development technologies and frameworks. These include Ring, Compojure, and Pedestal, which can be used to build full-stack web applications using Clojure.
What Does A Clojure Developer Do?
If you’ve never employed a Clojure developer, you may be wondering exactly what one does. This will, of course, depend on the needs of the business and the project itself, but there are a few general key responsibilities worth pointing out:
- Develop and maintain applications: One of the main responsibilities of a Clojure developer is to develop and maintain applications using the Clojure programming language. This includes writing code, testing it, and debugging issues that arise during development.
- Build scalable applications: Clojure is designed to be highly scalable, so Clojure developers need to be able to build applications that can handle large amounts of traffic and data. This goes hand-in-hand with tools like distributed computing frameworks and cloud services.
- Optimize application performance: High performance is a key feature of Clojure, so Clojure developers need to have a strong understanding of how to optimize applications.
- Collaborate with other developers: Clojure developers often work as part of a team, so they need to be able to collaborate effectively with other developers. This may involve technical skills like sharing and reviewing code but also soft skills such as strong communication.
In summary, a Clojure developer is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining applications that are fast, efficient, and scalable.
💡 Related: Tips For Hiring .NET Developers
Clojure Developer 2023 Statistics
According to the StackOveflow Developer Survey:
- It is in the top 50 most-used languages overall and the top 40 professionally.
- It is the highest-paid language to know (Averaging at $106,644, an increase from 2021’s $95,000).
Also from the State of Clojure:
- The use of Clojure at work reached its peak in 2022.
- Clojure had an increase of 7% in companies of size 1000+ in 2022.
- More than 75% of developers choose it for web development purposes, Making web development in Clojure the most popular outlet of the language.
- Over 40% of developers choose Clojure for open-source projects.
Are Clojure Developers In Demand?
Clojure is rapidly gaining popularity, especially in the web development field, where companies have started adopting it for their projects. According to the TIOBE index, it is one of the top 100 most popular languages.
According to job market analytics platform Burning Glass, there were over 2,700 job postings for Clojure developers in the United States alone in the past year, with an average salary of $121,000 per year.
How to Hire The Best Clojure Developer?
As in all IT recruitment processes, when it comes to hiring Clojure developers, the process can be challenging, particularly if you’re looking for the most talented and experienced professionals. Local offerings will usually be limited or not tailored to specific needs, so companies have opted for other options, such as hiring remotely.
Remote work is becoming more common and more popular, allowing companies to tap into a broader talent pool and hire the best developers from around the world. But even then finding the perfect remote Clojure developers may not be as easy as it sounds. It’s all about looking in the right places and offering what they’re looking for.
1. Write A Job Description
Start by writing a compelling job description that emphasizes the technical skills and experience you’re looking for. This should include specific details about the technologies and frameworks you use, as well as the kind of projects and problems you expect your candidate to tackle.
2. Start Recruiting
There are several platforms you can use to reach talented Clojure developers, including LinkedIn, Upwork, and freelance marketplaces like Toptal and Hirable. These platforms allow you to search for developers based on specific criteria, such as location, experience level, and project type.
It’s important during this time to not rest on your laurels and look for candidates yourself. Some of the best experts may not be looking actively for work, but can be persuaded to change with the right incentives. If you want the best, you can’t wait for them to fall on your lap.
3. Test Your Candidates
Testing is an important part of the hiring process, as it is in this step that you will filter out the candidates until you find the best one. A hiring manager with a strong IT background can help a lot with this step, as they’ll be able to arrange the process optimally to find the best option as fast and as definitively as possible.
During the testing stage, you’ll want to conduct a series of varied interviews to better assess your candidate in several key metrics:
- Technical skills: These are important, as they are the reason why you’re hiring the candidate in the first place. In this particular case, you’ll want someone with strong Clojure development foundations, as well as any other technologies you deal in.
- Soft skills: Your candidate will probably integrate a team, but even if not, they will need to be able to communicate clearly and know how to work with other people to avoid friction and inefficiencies.
- Company fit: Another important point is knowing if your candidate is a good fit for your company and it shares its vision. That way, they will be more compelled to work on the company’s projects, increasing their happiness and reducing the desire to leave at a minimum.
Getting to know your candidates deeply is the best method to finding your ideal pick. After interviewing your candidates, you should have a strong lead as to which is the candidate best tailored for the job.
4. Choose The Best Candidate And Start Onboarding
After deciding who to hire, offering a proposal contract, and actually hiring them, it’s time to get them onboard. Start on the right foot and establish a strong process for onboarding that will alleviate their worries and provide critical support in their first steps within the company. This is critical especially if your recruit is remote: you’ll want them to feel welcomed and as an integral part of the team.
Note: In this post we want to give you specific advice so you can successfully hire a Clojure developer, but if you need help with the hiring process, you can always leave the hard work in the hands of a staffing agency.
Skills To Look For In A Clojure Specialist
When hiring a Clojure specialist, it is important to look for certain skills and qualities that are specific to this language. Here are some of the key skills to look for in a Clojure developer:
- Strong functional programming skills: Clojure is a functional programming language, so it is important that the developer has a deep understanding of functional programming concepts.
- Experience with concurrency: Clojure is designed to handle concurrency, so the developer should be familiar with concurrency and multithreading.
- Familiarity with the Clojure ecosystem: The Clojure ecosystem includes a number of libraries and frameworks. Look for developers who are familiar with these tools and have experience working with them. Especially the case with libraries and frameworks that your development team already uses.
- Understanding of data structures and algorithms: Clojure places a strong emphasis on data structures and algorithms, so make sure that the developer has a solid understanding of these concepts.
- Familiarity with web development: This is highly dependent on your company’s use case, but many Clojure developers work on web applications, so it is important to look for developers who have experience with web development frameworks.
- Problem-solving skills: Clojure is a language that emphasizes elegant solutions to complex problems, so it is important to look for developers who are creative problem-solvers.
- Good communication skills: As with any development role, good communication skills are essential. Look for developers who are able to communicate their ideas clearly and work effectively with team members.
When hiring a Clojure specialist, it is important to look for someone who has a strong background in functional programming and a good understanding of Clojure’s unique features and ecosystem. Make sure they work well in a team on top of that and you’ve got a winning combination.
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4 Clojure Interview Questions to Ask Your Dev Candidate
1. Coding tasks
If you want to hire a Clojure developer, you need to make sure that they aren’t just an expert at theoretical questions, but that they also know how to do some common coding tasks.
2. Write a recursive function that generates every permutation of an input string and returns them as a set
With this question from Interview Cake, your potential developer doesn’t need to spend their time focusing on efficiency. Instead, it’s meant to see if they can write this code with Clojure. Assume each character in the input string is unique and the function is allowed to have loops, as long as it is also recursive.
Let’s take a look an example solution to this code:
(defn- remaining-subs [s idx]
(str (subs s 0 idx)
(subs s (inc idx) (count s))))
(defn permutations
"O(n!) time solution - recursively computing permutations."
[s]
(if (<= (count s) 1)
#[s]
(reduce-kv
(fn [permutations-so-far idx char]
(->> (permutations (remaining-subs s idx))
(map (partial str char))
(into permutations-so-far)))
#{}
(vec s))))Keep in mind that this is just one solution, but not the only possible solution as there are different ways of accomplishing the question. If you don’t want to worry about trying to interview for a developer in a language you don’t know or understand, let us find you a highly-vetted expert so you can get straight to work.
3. There is a pre-existing function rand5() that generates a random integer from 1 to 5. Use it to write the function rand7() that generates a random integer from 1 to 7.
This commonly asked interview question is meant to simulate a 5-sided die then becoming a 7-sided die. It makes sure that your developer knows how to write code correctly in the language of your choice, that they have substantial logic skills, and that they can incorporate pre-existing functions, perhaps created by another team member or before they came on-board, to the desired result.
The first method already returns each integer with equal probability, and rand7() must do the same.
Let’s take a look at a sample solution:
(defn- random [floor ceiling]
(+ floor (rand-int (inc (- ceiling floor)))))
(defn- rand5 []
(random 1 5))
(def ^:private rand7-matrix
(->> (range 1 8)
(cycle)
(take 21)
(partition 5 5 (repeat 0))
(mapv vec)))
(defn rand7-with-matrix []
(loop [row (dec (rand5))
column (dec (rand5))]
(if (and (= row 4) (> column 0))
(recur (dec (rand5)) (dec (rand5)))
(get-in rand7-matrix [row column]))))
(defn rand7 []
(loop [rand-a (rand5)
rand-b (rand5)]
(let [out (inc (+ (* (dec rand-a) 5) (dec rand-b)))]
(if (<= out 21)
(inc (mod out 7))
(recur (rand5) (rand5))))))4. Find the highest product you can get from any three integers in a given list of integers
The last coding task that we’ll look at that you should ask before you hire a Clojure developer is relatively simple, but it confirms that they have a solid grasp of the logic of Clojure as well as how to properly write it.
The input list_of_ints that we’ll use in this given example will always have at least three integers, so your potential coders won’t have to test for this outlier.
(defn- rotation
"Rotates bucket of k length around the bottom and top of arr by idx."
[arr k idx]
(let [top (- (count arr) (- k idx))]
(vec (concat (subvec arr 0 idx)
(subvec arr top)))))
(defn highest-product-of-k
"0(nlgn) time + 0(n + (k + k^2)) space solution."
[k arr]
(if (>= k (count arr))
(reduce * arr)
(->> (range (inc k))
(map (partial rotation (vec (sort arr)) k))
(map (partial reduce *))
(apply max))))How Much Does It Cost To Hire A Clojure Developer?
Hiring a Clojure developer in the US costs around $125.000/year depending on the specialization. In addition, pay rates vary according to the developer’s location, year of experience and set of skills. Without impacting the last two factors, you can save budget hiring remotely outside the US.
Here are some values for Clojure developer salaries we’ve researched using values sourced from Talent.com, Glassdoor and DeveloperSalary.com:
| Country | Salary per year | Salary per month | Salary per hour |
| USA | $125,320 | $10,443 | $65 |
| Mexico | $48,168 | $4,014 | $25 |
| Brazil | $41,232 | $3,436 | $21 |
| Poland | $47,172 | $3,931 | $25 |
Hire Clojure Developers Fast and Easy With DistantJob
Clojure is a coding language that is easy to learn and can have great results if it is used properly.
There are plenty of ways of hiring developers for Clojure. However, not all of them work. For example, freelancing platforms or local recruitment agencies can offer you a suitable candidate, but IT remote recruitment agencies such as DistantJob can provide you with an excellent candidate.
If you’re looking to hire an expert Clojure developer, then DistantJob can be your partner and find you who you need to complete your projects successfully. We can get you the developers you need, and that fit your company, in just under two weeks. Interested? Contact us or visit our offices today!
