5 Considerations When Building an In-House Dev Team
In the following slides, Talkin’ Cloud will show you 5 key considerations when building your own in-house development team.
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So you want to create an in-house development team? Here are a handful of considerations you need to make. Click through the slideshow to find out what you should know before you embark on creating an in-house development organization.
This seems like an obvious first step but it’s one that you really shouldn’t skip. What kind of projects are you looking at developing in-house? Do you know what kind of skills your in-house developers will need to bring – whether it’s Java, PHP or other languages, you should know what you’re looking for before you begin your search. Java is one of the highest paying job skills in IT right now so be sure to prepare for that reality as well.
It is one thing to list jobs online, but quite another when you’re able to go meet prospective employees face-to-face. What’s the best place to meet a developer? Open source conferences and meetups are a great place to meet developers who may be looking for work.
Jonathan LaCour, VP of cloud and development for hosting company DreamHost says that he has hired numerous cloud developers from open source communities where the company was already participating and contributing.
“Being a part of those things in an honest way is a great way to attract people to join you on working on those things as well,” LaCour says.
Not already a part of open source communities? Ask around your network, you may be surprised who you already know that can help guide you.
Now this tip may sound a bit strange but DreamHost’s LaCour explains it as this: “We actually develop our cloud to go after developers but also to provide an infrastructure for our own use. That’s a wonderful thing because we have a customer in the building that we can talk to at all times and ask if we’re serving them well.”
So what does this mean for you? You must keep an open mind and be willing to listen to what your development team thinks about the platform or product. If you’re a less technical person, you may want to appoint a technical leader in this area who can really stay close to the process and ensure the feedback translates to improvements that your customers will notice.
There is absolutely no point in spending the time and money on development if you’re not going to put in the effort to measure the results or understand how the product meets the needs of your customers. Establishing a clear set of customer personas can help your business understand who the product is for and outline a product roadmap.
“Get things deployed and into the hands of customers and then rapidly figure out who that customer is and what they’re trying to accomplish,” LaCour says.
Again, this may seem obvious, but many developers are passionate about what they do and love to create their own systems. This is fine if what is being developed is a part of the core business offering, but a bespoke system that tracks employee vacation days? Not the best way to spend development time.
Every company will have a different approach to the build versus buy dilemma, but it is critical to focus on the things that customers want and that are going to make you money, LaCour says.
Again, this may seem obvious, but many developers are passionate about what they do and love to create their own systems. This is fine if what is being developed is a part of the core business offering, but a bespoke system that tracks employee vacation days? Not the best way to spend development time.
Every company will have a different approach to the build versus buy dilemma, but it is critical to focus on the things that customers want and that are going to make you money, LaCour says.
There are countless resources on the pros and cons of having an in-house development team versus outsourcing your development work. An in-house development team can create products and software that fit your company’s specific needs, but requires organization in order to run effectively.
Let’s say you’ve already decided you need an in-house development team – what are some of the considerations you must keep in mind when creating this team?
In the following slides, Talkin’ Cloud will show you 5 key considerations when building your own in-house development team. Have any considerations to add or experiences to share? Let us know in the comments.
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