How to Find Programmers For Your Startup?

Despite the turbulent times in the tech field, the IT industry shows no sign of slowing down. According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is expected to total $5.61 trillion in 2025, which is 9.8% higher than in 2024.  

Yet, it’s hard to find and hire a programmer who would suit your project requirements. 

It’s not that hard to hire a programmer who will be a great coder. The real challenge is to find a great professional with the expertise you need, good communication skills, and reasonable salary expectations.

I’m Anastasiya Marchuk, a Business Development Manager at Uptech, who participated in team selection for various startups and well-off businesses. In this guide, I want to share my insights on where and how to find programmers that will suit your project needs perfectly.

Let’s start!

9 Steps to Find and Hire Programmers for Your Project

The team you hire can either make or break your project. Get it right, and you’ll end up with professionals who deliver high-quality work within set timelines. Get it wrong, and you’ll get stuck with frustration, missed opportunities, and a blown budget. 

The good news is that you don’t need to play hit-or-miss. With the right mindset and strategy, you can find and hire the absolute top-tier talent on the market without wasting time and money. 

So, how do you do that? See the steps below. But most importantly, implement them in real life. Knowing theory is nice, but only practice brings results.

Step 1 — define your needs

This is your starting point. Skipping this step is like going grocery shopping without a list. You’ll end up with a cart full of random stuff that you don’t need and eventually forget the essentials.

Before posting a vacancy or conducting interviews, you have to spend a good chunk of time brainstorming and reflecting on your project needs. According to PMI, 47% fail to meet their goals because of poor requirements management.

You can’t manage requirements until you outline them first.

Things to consider before searching for a programmer

Start by answering some questions. Clearing out some things will help you understand who you need on your team. This will also clarify your expectations for potential candidates.

Here is a list of questions that can help clarify the project’s requirements and hire programmers that match them:

1. How is your product different from other solutions? 
2. Who is your potential user? 
3. What about your competitors? How are they unique? 
4. What’s your monetization model? 
5. What are the features you want to implement? 
6. What are the platforms you want to build the app for? 
7. What’s the tech stack? 

What’s the size of your project?

This is always best if you define the scope and complexity of your project before looking for programmers for hire. In particular, create a document that determines:

• Project's purpose
• Goals and benefits
• Target audience
• The scale of the project

All these factors can affect how many people you'll need on your development team and the experience level of the programmers for hire.

Is it an MVP or a full-fledged product?

Planning a basic functionality or a whole development process is also crucial in building your development team. Thus, if you aim for an MVP, you will need a smaller team of seasoned developers who can mobilize within 3-5 months.

However, if you are already scaling up your product, you will need a more diverse team of programmers with different expertise and experience levels.

In either case, you should communicate the scale and longevity of your project right off the bat. It will help your team to develop a roadmap, determine the logic, and build a scalable architecture.

What platforms will your app cover?

To find the right programmer, you need to define their perfect tech skill set. To do so, I advise you to start with the following questions:

• Where will your users find your app?
• Mobile devices (iOS, Android) or desktop (Linux, macOS, Windows)? Or even both?

Depending on the choice here, you will need different programming languages used on the project:

• Android: Kotlin, Coroutines/RxJava, Dagger, Retrofit, Clean Architecture, Room, JUnit‍
• iOS: Swift, RxSwift, MVVM/Redux, XCTest, and SnapshotTesting‍
• Frontend: JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, TypeScript, React + Redux / MobX, Next.js, Storybook, Jest, Cypress‍
• Backend: Node.js, Typescript, Nest.js/Express.js‍
• Databases: SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL), NoSQL (MongoDB), Elasticsearch/Algolia, Redis‍
• Cloud: AWS Cloud, Google Cloud‍
• CI/CD: CircleCI, Gitlab CI, GitHub Actions‍
• DevOps tools: Terraform, Ansible, Docker‍
• Analytics: Segment, Amplitude, Adjust

Another way to go — leave the tech stack to the outsource team, like the Uptech team. Knowing your scope and platforms to cover, we can collect a team of programmers with the language knowledge and expertise you need.

This list can go on and on. But the main idea is that you need to understand as much as possible about your project to find coders who will match your requirements.

Expert tip: You need to understand as much as possible about your project to find a programmer who will match your requirements.

Step 2 — choose your hiring method

Defining the goals of your project is only the first step. Another one is to decide how you will collaborate with your new hires in the future. 

Here are the main collaboration models to choose from:

Hire freelance programmers

Freelancers are free contractors who are not assigned to one specific project. While working with a freelancer, you usually make a contract that defines the scope of work and outlines the rules of your collaboration. You can find and hire a freelance programmer on resources such as Upwork or Toptal.

Expert tip: Hiring a freelancer is a great choice when you need some help on an ongoing project. For example, you need to fix something or create a landing page quickly. In such cases, freelancers are your way to go.

Pros of freelance programmers:

• No need to provide working equipment
• The employment model is optional
• Access to talents worldwide

Cons of freelance programmers:

• Less commitment due to other projects
• Complicated onboarding process
• Suits only medium and small businesses 

However, when you want a team to start moving with you from scratch and stay long during the project, you should better head to in-house employees or programming outsourcing.

Hire programmers in-house

Searching for in-house employees means hiring permanent staff for your company. It also means you will have to go through all the hiring processes — recruitment, onboarding, providing social benefits, etc. But the pluses are that you are hiring a team for long-term collaboration, who will be aligned with the corporate culture and other team members.

Expert tip: In-house employment is pretty costly, so it works best, provided you have a stable budget with no severe constraints. Also, in-house employment is suitable when you need to control the development process fully and can’t afford to take any risks of not addressing problems immediately.

Pros of in-house programmers:

• The total commitment of the employee
• The employee integrated into the company's culture
• More input and involvement
• Higher awareness of the development processes of the company

Cons of in-house programmers:

• Hiring and onboarding expenses
• Costs of providing suitable working conditions and equipment
• Limited to the local tech talents
• Only a full-time employment option

Besides all the advantages, in-house employment can be costly and not flexible for the changing startup environment. In this case, outsourcing can be a better choice.

Find programmers as an outsourcing team

Outsourcing development means delegating the development process to an external agency abroad. Such collaboration is usually done within an agreement, which outlines the requirements and conditions.

Among the main benefits of outsourcing, I would name:

• No need to cover social benefits and employment
• Access to a large pool of talent
• Availability of high-end technologies

Outsourcing or outstaffing is a perfect choice for aspiring IT startups, as outsourcing covers all the pitfalls of development in a hasty environment:

• Budget constraints: Outsourcing development provides flexibility in allocating your budget.

• Tight launch deadlines: Let’s imagine you need to launch an MVP. In other words, within 2-3 months, you need to produce a more or less functioning prototype for investors or potential users. With no product development expertise, this task seems close to impossible.

• Outsourcing a development team opens access to a diversity of experts all over the world. By outsourcing, you can find coders for a reasonable price.

• Vague perspective: Again, when you lack experience in product development, the results of your efforts may be up in the air. Thankfully, an outsourced vendor always has a business manager who can help turning the technical requirements into a functioning product.

If you want to know more about the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing, check out our article “Why do companies outsource?”.

Step 3 — set your estimated budget

The next step is no less important than the previous. Setting a budget will determine a lot of things, like the quality of talent you attract and the company's financial runway. It’s not just a number, it’s a foundation for your project’s success. But what does it mean, exactly?

Without a clear budget, a lot of companies usually underestimate the true cost of hiring and salary expenses. A study by Jessie Hagen, formerly with U.S. Bank, found that 82% of small businesses fail because of poor cash flow management or a poor understanding of cash flow.

I’ve seen a couple of startups run out of funds in half the projected time simply because they failed to acknowledge and account for hidden costs. 

Salary is just one piece of the puzzle. Don’t forget about:

• Benefits & perks (health insurance, bonuses, equipment)
• Freelancer overhead (platform fees, invoicing, management time)
• Turnover risk (a bad hire costs 2–3x their salary to replace)

The set budget also prevents you from spending time on options you can’t afford. Knowing your limits, you’ll be able to separate candidates with the salary expectations within your financial limits, which will shorten the hiring process and help you find the right experts faster as well. 

However, it’s very important to be realistic about the amount of money you put into salary expenses. The budget determines the level of quality of candidates you attract. Unrealistic budgets lead to understaffed or underqualified teams. You can’t expect a professional, senior programmer to agree to an offer 20% below market rate. 

Take some time to research market rates and build your budget framework with realistic expectations in mind.

How much does it cost to find programmers? Outsource, in-house, and freelance comparison

Let’s now look at the difference in the cost of hiring programmers in different cases: outsourcing, freelancers, or in-house development.

Outsourcing development

Outsourcing software development means hiring a team of programmers, project managers, designers, and QAs as a whole package. It usually happens that outsourcing development is done from abroad, which makes it offshore software development.

The cost of outsourcing a development team can vary depending on the geographical location of the team. Thus, hiring from countries like Norway or the UK will cost more than hiring from the Eastern European Hub (Ukraine or Poland). It all depends on the hourly rate and how it differs, depending on the cost of living in a certain region.

So here’s an approximate cost breakdown for an hourly rate for different countries:

• Ukraine: $35 to $55 per hour
• USA: $100 to $180 per hour
• Europe: up to $100 per hour

In-house development

In-house development is about employing a team of developers within your organization. This is a complicated and long-term process that has its own perks. Employing a person, you can expect a better match with your corporate culture, more interest in the social life of the company, and more involvement in business development.

Yet, the cost of finding a development team in-house can be high, including salaries, benefits, renting office space, and other expenses. Also, when hiring in-house, you should take into account the rates in your country, which can be significantly higher than those offshore. Thus, the hourly rates of an in-house team of programmers can range from $50 to $200 per hour.

Hiring a freelancer

Hiring a freelance programmer means hiring an individual contractor to complete your project. You can hire a programmer either locally or abroad, but usually, this is a remote type of work. The hourly rate of employing a freelance programmer can vary, depending on the professional’s level of expertise, location, and the complexity of work. In general, the rates can vary from $20 to $100 per hour.  

Finding a freelance developer (or a team of developers) is an excellent option for filling gaps in your ongoing project. Yet, freelance developers can be less involved in the business and the project itself, which brings risks of irresponsibility and low quality of work.

Step 4 — create a compelling job description

After getting all the important details like goals, needs, and budget details, it’s time to move on to the next step and create a job description. It may seem easy, but the text needs careful attention to be successful. According to Indeed's survey, 52% of job seekers say a job description's quality has a significant impact on their decision to apply.

Here is essential information to include: 

• Detailed project requirements
• Specific technical skills needed
• Responsibilities and expected outcomes
• Company culture and values
• Competitive compensation range
• Potential for growth and learning

Step 5 — post your job or search profiles

Hanging a job posting and hoping the right candidates find their way to you is like fishing with a small net in the ocean — you might catch something, but you're missing too much area. To attract A+ tech talent, you require a strategic, multi-channel approach.

Treat your job description like a landing page optimized for SEO. The very best developers aren’t just looking through job boards, they’re searching for specific terms.

• Mention specific tech stacks: “React/Node.js Developer” beats “Frontend Developer”
• Add seniority level: “Mid-Level DevOps Engineer” is more informative than simply “DevOps Engineer”
• Add location/remote status: "Remote Go Developer (US Time Zones)" helps self-select candidates

Also, actively source candidates on LinkedIn and GitHub. 

For LinkedIn:

• Use boolean search strings such as: ("Python" OR "Django") AND ("Senior" OR "Lead") AND ("Open to Work" OR "Open to Opportunities")
• Track people who have worked at companies you admire
• Look for those who have recently wrapped large projects (look at their activity feed)

For GitHub: 

• Search repositories for your tech stack (e.g., "language:TypeScript stars:>100")
• Check contributors to popular open-source projects in your domain
• Look for developers who regularly solve problems similar to yours

How you source those candidates often makes the difference between an adequate hire and an exceptional one. Passive outreach might require 10% more effort but can deliver 100% better outcomes.

Step 6 — screen resumes and portfolios

So, you posted your job opening, and the applications are rolling in. What’s next?

It’s time to sift through the candidates and see who really stands out. This stage is important because you’re not just searching for someone who can code — you’re searching for a proven track record of someone who has achieved success in similar projects to yours.

Keep in mind that a resume can easily list a dozen programming languages and impressive skills,  but what really counts is if a candidate has successfully implemented them in the real world. 

Ask yourself:

• Have they handled projects of similar scale and complexity?
• Do they have industry-specific experience?
• Have they held roles where they were responsible for key aspects of development, or were they just part of a larger team?

A resume can be polished, but code doesn’t lie. If the candidate has open repositories (GitHub, GitLab), take time to have a look at project complexity, code clarity, and commit history. If there are no public repositories, request examples of their work — any competent developer should be able to share snippets or small demos of work.

A resume shows you what a developer says they know, but their portfolio and previous work show you what they’ve actually done. 

By looking for actual results rather than buzzwords, you’ll quickly narrow down your list to the most qualified candidates.

Step 7 — conduct interviews

So you’ve done the search, selected the favorites, and are ready to test them in an interview. But what should you actually do to find the right programmer?

Here are my tips for you:

Check the references  

Once you’ve selected your top candidates, take some time and check their clients’ reviews. Checking a review will help you to know more about the approaches, culture, and methods of the team. It is also important to check the previous cases and see whether they reflect what you expect from a development team.

You can find reviews on outsourcing companies and their programmers’ work on the Clutch accounts. For example, you can see the reviews that Uptech clients shared about the collaboration here.

Look at communication skills

When interviewing the programmers to hire, pay attention to the candidates’ communication skills. Though this characteristic doesn’t seem obviously essential, it plays a critical role in fruitful collaboration. You should seek to hire a team of programmers who can give you communication, which is:

• Transparent — make sure you have access to all the documents of the team
• Regular — the team should communicate the status quo regularly
• Interactive — make sure the team includes you in the discussion of any developments on the project

Also, you can get an understanding of the team’s communication style by noticing how fast they are replying to your messages and emails. It’s most probably that they will communicate the same way during the workday.

Discuss project management

One of the most important characteristics to figure out before hiring programmers is the project management style of the team. Make sure the team can provide a transparent process of tracking progress, detecting and solving emerging issues, and notifying you of any developments.

Step 8 — make an offer and negotiate

Once you’ve identified your perfect candidate, it’s time to make an attractive offer. Suggest compensation based on competitive market rates — sites like Glassdoor or Levels.fyi can help you compare salaries. Be willing to negotiate — whether it’s about pay, the number of hours to work, or other benefits. Some negotiation can get you a long way toward securing top talent.

While drafting the contract, be sure that it’s clear and discusses everything — project scope and deliverables, payment details, confidentiality agreement (if necessary).

A well-crafted contract helps set the tone for collaboration, so be sure to get it right.

Step 9 — onboard and collaborate effectively

‍You’ve survived the hiring gauntlet and hired a talented developer — congratulations! But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the real work starts now. The first few weeks will decide whether that new hire becomes a rockstar contributor or a lame turnover statistic.

An unstructured or hurried onboarding experience results in frustration, extended ramp-up time, and, in some cases, early employee attrition. 

But do it well, and the new hire will hit the ground running.

Here are a few tips for you:

Before day 1:

• Send a welcome email with first-week expectations
• Set up all logins and tools in advance
• Assign an onboarding buddy

First day:

• Keep it light: intro meetings, not info dumps
• Give a clear "start here" doc (not a 20-page manual)
• Show them where the code is and how the team communicates

First week:

• Assign a small, meaningful task immediately (not busywork)
• Daily quick syncs to catch blockers fast
• End the week with "What’s working/What’s confusing?"

First month:

• Gradually increase responsibility
• Get their honest feedback on the process
• For remote hires: create virtual hangout spaces

Onboarding is not about paperwork and protocols. It’s about creating a system that helps smart people to do their best work, as fast as possible. 

And that’s something you only need to devote time to. Because the difference between good and great teams is often simply how well they adapt the new talent they bring in.

Why Hire Uptech Programmers?

Uptech is a reliable team of product developers with 9+ years of experience. Our team holds profound expertise in such domains as:

• Fintech
• Healthcare
• Real estate
• E-commerce

We are proud to be long-standing partners of such distinguished businesses as Aspiration, Goat, and Nomad.

Besides helping our clients to implement their ideas, we also build our own products in the most aspiring market domains. For example, an AI-based avatar generator, DYVO, or a no-code/low-code platform, Sommo.

We know firsthand how to build startups from an idea to a final product, so we can become your reliable partner on this difficult stretch.

Our clients value us for:

• Innovativeness and proactiveness
• Clear and regular communication
• Agility of the development process
• Profound tech expertise and domain knowledge

You can check our client’s reviews on our partnership on our Clutch profile.

Or check our portfolio and look at our expertise in use.

Conclusion

Finding programmers is not tricky. There are a lot of job-seeking resources, freelance platforms, and websites that buzz with talent. 

But the real challenge is finding the programmers that would suit your project’s requirements in terms of experience, expertise, availability, and skill sets. If you take the time to figure out some questions about your project (like scope, goals, and values), the search for programmers will be a much simpler task.

If you wonder what kind of development team would suit your project, contact our team, and we will find programmers to implement your idea.

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FAQ

Can I hire someone to code something for me?

Yes, you can and often need to hire a professional for coding projects that exceed basic website builders or simple scripts. Fiverr, Upwork, and Toptal are platforms to help you find and hire freelance developers for one-off tasks, prototypes, or short-term projects. When it comes to more complex work like enterprise software, mobile apps, or AI solutions, outsourcing to a dedicated software development studio is typically the best course of action. They handle recruitment, management, and quality control.

How can I hire a programmer? 

To successfully hire programmers, follow these steps:

1. Define project scope, tech stack, and budget 
2. Choose a hiring model: freelance, agency, or full-time 
3. Post on relevant platforms (Upwork, Toptal, LinkedIn) 
4. Review portfolios and activity on public repositories
5. Conduct technical assessments and interviews 
6. Make an offer and negotiate
7. Onboard and collaborate effectively

This structured process will help you find the right expert.

What are the costs of hiring a programmer?

The salary of a programmer is based on their experience and the type of work. For newcomers on freelancer sites such as Upwork, charges are usually between $15-$50 per hour. The hourly rate for senior specialists with expertise in dedicated domains like AI or blockchain can be $100-$300. Project-based work typically ranges from $5,000 for entry-level apps to $50,000+ for complex systems.

Salaries for full-time positions vary by region as well. Junior developers in Eastern Europe may earn $ 10,000 a year, while senior engineers in Silicon Valley can make over $ 200,000 annually.

There are additional expenses such as software licenses and infrastructure. You should budget an additional 20% just for changes in scope, since most technical projects will experience issues that the planning did not account for.

If you have a project in mind and want to get a precise estimate, please contact us for a free consultation.

Why is hiring programmers often expensive?

Programmers are in high demand, which makes them expensive to hire. There are relatively few skilled programmers available, programming requires specialized skills, and can have high-impact value for businesses. This competition for talent drives up salaries and recruitment costs.

Where can I find programmers online?

The answer depends on what you are looking for. LinkedIn is great for recruiting full-time employees with verifiable job histories. GitHub connects you with talented developers based on what projects they’ve worked on. For freelancers, Upwork provides the biggest talent pool (but you’ll need to vet them carefully), while Toptal offers top-tier, pre-screened experts at higher rates.

What are the best platforms for hiring freelance programmers?

Toptotal. Only the top 3% of freelance talent are accepted onto this exclusive platform. Recommended for huge projects needing experienced and dependable developers.

Gun.io. Focuses on connecting clients with the screened technical talent for high-quality software projects.

Lemon.io. Startup-focused with an emphasis on a developer-centric approach with vetting.

Arc.dev. Focuses on long-term projects for developers only and has freelance and full-time remote options available.

Upwork. A large-scale freelance marketplace with an extensive talent pool across multiple skill levels. Broad applications, but variable quality. 

Fiverr. Mostly used for small tasks (gigs), but also offers specialized programming services. Can be budget-friendly for specific tasks.

How do I identify and hire a professional programmer?

Whether you’re a tech expert or you’ve never written a line of code, the secret to finding the right programmer comes down to one thing: identifying real-world expertise. Here’s how to separate the wheat from the chaff and find genuine professionals.

If you have a tech background:

You have the benefit of speaking the tech language. Don’t take a passing look at their GitHub; examine their code. Is it organized? Efficient? Would another developer be able to understand it? Give them some real-world problems to solve in the interview. Challenge them with real-world scenarios in the interview. The best responses you’ll get will not be textbook answers — they’ll walk you through the thought process.

If you don’t have a tech background:

Focus on what you can understand. Request to see apps they’ve actually developed — a functioning demo is worth more than a fancy degree. Send them a small test project and analyze how they present it. Do they communicate clearly? Meet deadlines? These practical signs matter more than technical jargon.

Either way, remember:

• Working code talks louder than any resume
• A trial period is your best friend
• Great programmers explain things simply
• If something feels off, trust that feeling