How to Choose a Software Development Company Today?

Software development becomes a must for any company eventually, whether you’re a small startup or a huge international company. You can’t avoid needing to develop software at some point or another, so the next question becomes where you can find the custom development you need.

You need to know where to look for a software development company and what approach to follow when hiring one and which questions you’ll need to ask. Luckily for you, we’ve got you covered with this article. So here’s what you need to know.

Where to Find an IT Company

There are plenty of places to turn to in your search for an IT company that can handle software development, and the most obvious is just to run a quick Google search and to see who shows up. If you’re struggling, you can always try entering a few different search terms to see if different companies surface for other but related terms.

The other obvious option is to ask for referrals, especially if you have contacts who work in a different industry and provide an unbiased recommendation. Suppose they can provide you with an introduction, even better. But, unfortunately, many of the best software development companies only take on new clients through recommendations, to begin with.

Other options are to use directories like Clutch or to turn to freelancing websites and portals like Upwork or People Per Hour. You’re likely to experience mixed results with these, but they can be a good starting point for you to get some suggestions as long as you carry out some of your own research to see how closely they align with your criteria.

Approach for Selecting a Software Development Company

There are two main things that you’ll want to look for. The first is to look for a balance. You shouldn’t look for a particular type of technology that you’ve heard is good because that might not be the best piece of technology for the specific use case that you have in mind.

A friend of yours might have told you that Golang is the best language out there, or perhaps you read somewhere that Python is the king. The truth is that every language has its pros and cons, and they’re all suited to different use cases.

Because of that, you shouldn’t try to force your developers to use any particular language. Instead, you need to find a partner that you can trust and then grant them the freedom to make a professional recommendation on the platform, language, and implementation approach. They’re the professionals, which is why you’re hiring them in the first place.

There are small companies, medium companies, and large companies. You might be a “small fish” that they treat almost like an afterthought to a large company, which obviously isn’t ideal. Smaller companies might not last long enough to finish your project, something that’s sad but true and which we’ve seen happen a number of times.

That’s why it’s a good idea to look for a medium-sized company of around 200 to 400 employees. This makes them big enough to be stable and small enough to care about their clients, giving you the best of both worlds.

There is also a range of different companies on the market, from super cheap to super expensive and covering everything in between. You might be surprised to know that the expensive companies sometimes do a pretty lousy job of things out of complacency, while the cheaper ones often cut corners. It’s usually the mid-tier companies that care the most about their value/price ratio.

A lot of it, then, comes down to finding the sweet spot somewhere in the middle.

Be sure to check out as much information as you can on any potential developer before committing to using them or signing any contracts. You’ll want to look at information like the country that they’re based in, their typical project or hourly rate (if they have one), the number of employees they have, and the tech stack that they work with. And of course, it goes without saying that you should also look at case studies and customer reviews, especially from companies that are similar to your own.

Speaking of sweet spots, when it comes to the best location for you to look at, you’re probably best off looking in Eastern Europe. If you go further east, the quality tends to dip, while if you go to the west, the prices tend to go up. And who wants to pay double for the same level of service?

The last thing to think about is that you need to find someone with a good human-to-human relationship. Of course, anyone can deploy a soulless chatbot that will respond immediately to questions, and anyone can hire customer service reps that will put a big fake smile on and pretend to help. Still, it takes something special for them to understand you and to want to help sincerely.

In many ways, finding potential software developers is easy. The hard part is separating the wheat from the chaff and creating a final shortlist to submit your brief to and ask for a response. You’ll then want to have a call with them to ask them your questions before deciding who you want to hire from there. 

Questions You Should Ask Your Future Software Developer

As a general rule, you can never ask too many questions. 

Remember, you’re looking for a good fit, and if you don’t ask the right questions, you’re setting yourself up for failure from the outset. 

This wastes everyone’s time and resources, so you’re better off asking too many questions than too few.

To help you along the way, here are a few generic questions that you might find helpful when identifying whether someone’s a good fit for you: 

1. What previous projects have you worked on that are similar to ours?
2. What does your testing and QA process look like?
3. How do you tell whether one of your builds has been successful?
4. What metrics do you track during your software builds?
5. What was the most difficult project you worked on and what made it so hard?
6. What information do you need for a perfect brief?
7. How does your development team handle feature requests and client feedback?
8. What makes your company different to the competition?
9. What’s the average experience level amongst your developers?
10. What’s the average length of time that you work with your clients for?
11. What makes for a successful build in your experience?
12. What are some projects where you can demonstrate an ROI for the client?
13. How do you ensure the adoption of your software builds?
14. How do you future-proof your software builds?
15. What question haven’t we asked that we should have?

It’s also a good idea to spend some time thinking up your questions to don’t forget something vitally important when you speak to a developer. But, again, it’s better to be over-prepared than to be under-prepared.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to go ahead and choose a software development company, you’re ready to take your first steps into hiring a provider. The good news is that with the tips and tricks we’ve shared, along with the sample questions that we’ve offered up, you should know everything you need to know to get going. So be sure to leave a comment to let us know how you get on!