How to Hire Cloud Developers Without Repeating Your Competitors’ Mistakes: 5 Proven Practices

According to a recent study by McKinsey, 95% of surveyed organizations are struggling to capture the benefits of the cloud because they don’t have the right talent in place. But talent shortage is not the only challenge business owners face when deciding to scale their cloud infrastructure.

As specialists in talent sourcing, we at Bridge understand the hardships of talent acquisition firsthand. Often, our customers turn to our talent sourcing services after failing to attract the necessary developers on their own. We noticed that some challenges do look similar from company to company, and that’s why in this article, we decided to analyze the main mistakes companies make when hiring cloud developers and suggest viable solutions to deal with them. 

So, let’s start by talking about projects that could use some help of cloud developers.

What projects need cloud developers and what skills should they have?

While the majority of companies need at least a system administrator, cloud developers’ skills are necessary for highly specific projects. These projects are usually complex, and in addition to cloud developers, may require such specialists as system architects, DevOps engineers, AWS-certified developers, and so on. So, let us list the projects with the highest demand for cloud programmers. 

• Developing and deploying cloud-based applications. Within such projects, cloud developers are responsible for designing, developing, testing, and deploying applications to the cloud. They also ensure the app’s scalability, security, and reliability. As a rule, they must be proficient in programming languages like Python, Java, or Ruby, understand how cloud services like AWS or GCP work, and leverage containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes. 
• Cloud migration projects. When it comes to hiring cloud developers for moving legacy software to cloud storage like Azure or AWS, you have to ensure that your candidates have the necessary knowledge to assess the current environment and develop an optimal cloud migration strategy, mitigating all the possible risks. 
• Building and managing cloud infrastructure. This type of cloud project requires building and configuring virtual machines, containers, and storage systems. The tasks cloud developers have to deal with in this case include designing and building cloud infrastructure using cloud computing technologies and scripting languages like Terraform, Ansible, or Chef.
• Big data and analytics. Big data and analytics projects require specialists who will be responsible for designing, testing, and maintaining data pipelines, data warehouses, and analytics systems in the cloud. In this case, they should be skilled with such technologies as AWS Glue, Azure Data Factory, or Google Cloud Dataflow. 

Why hiring unskilled cloud programmers will lead your project to failure

So, the cloud developers’ skills for each type of project we mentioned above are pretty diverse and complex. That’s why evaluating them can be a tough nut to crack, and this is just the task you can’t fail since the cost of a mistake when it comes to hiring cloud developers is too high. What’s more, your cloud infrastructure security can be the price. 

In addition to the skills and responsibilities we’ve already covered, your cloud developers should also keep pace with the latest security practices, address potential security vulnerabilities, and develop proven data protection strategies to mitigate security risks and data breaches. Otherwise, the data leakage can cost you up to $4.82 million, which is indeed quite a sum to pay for a poor hiring choice. 

What are the most common challenges businesses face when hiring cloud engineers? 

So, how can you avoid the risk of making a mistake and hire cloud developers safely? We’re here to help in this case Below you can find some common challenges businesses encounter when hiring cloud talent, and proven ways to solve them. Let’s dive in. 

Challenge #1 – Evaluating technical skills

Evaluating the candidate’s technical skills is probably the most important task when it comes to talent hiring. But it is easier said than done, especially for companies at the beginning of their cloud transformation. Evaluating the technical skills of cloud developers can also be difficult for companies due to the rapidly evolving nature of cloud technologies.

The evaluation process itself is also rather complex. First, you have to define the necessary skills you need for your project to then develop a comprehensive evaluation process that will include tests, interviews, and assessments. From our standpoint, it would be good to also use the real-world scenarios, and simulate actual cloud computing tasks a cloud developer will deal with. Last but not least, having an experienced cloud developer on board so that they can hold peer-to-peer assessments and provide feedback would be a plus. But as we said, it sounds super easy, but very hard to implement on the other hand. 

Solution – Hire pre-vetted cloud engineers

Fortunately, there is an easier way to hire cloud engineers. As an option, you can partner with a tech talent sourcing vendor which already has a wide database of pre-vetted cloud developers. While you’ll still have to interview candidates on your own, choosing candidates from a validated talent pool is significantly more productive than contacting cloud developers on LinkedIn or job boards and spending time assessing their skills. 

Challenge #2 – Inability to attract top talent

Attracting qualified software developers becomes especially tough because of the tech talent gap. Cloud developers are no exception here. According to Deloitte, there is an acute shortage of cloud development talent, while the demand for them was significantly triggered by the pandemic and continues to grow. The increasing demand at a short supply also explains why the average cloud application developer salary is high, averaging around $113,000 per year with benefits. What’s more, a high salary isn’t the only thing cloud developers expect. 

How to Attract Tech Talent: What Matters Most to Software Developers?

Solution – Offer competitive salaries and benefits and hire globally

So, the most obvious solution to the cloud developers shortage challenge is to raise the bar and offer them better conditions than your competitors. On the other hand, not all companies can afford to pay sky-high salaries to their cloud developers. In this case, it would be a good idea to consider global talent hiring and look for cloud developers in those markets where the salary expectations are lower, but the talent is as good as US-based developers. And Bridge can help you hire cloud developers globally so that you can achieve a match between the required skills and your development budget. 

Challenge #3 – Failing to stay within their hiring budget

Complex processes are usually followed by major investments. Hiring cloud developers is an on-point example. Cloud talent shortage and the complexity of the skills evaluation process usually mean overhead costs for companies that need to hire cloud experts fast. That’s why some companies fail to stay within their hiring budget. So, is there a solution to this issue? 

Solution – Use fixed-price sourcing-as-a-service

Given all the challenges of hiring cloud developers, we suggest making hiring costs transparent, and predictable. As an option, you can use our sourcing-as-a-service that comes at a fixed price. What’s more, this price is 60% lower than hiring cloud developers on your own or partnering with an agency that doesn’t use an automated and data-driven solution for talent sourcing like we do. 

Challenge #4 – Cultural differences

If you have to hire a cloud software development team, you are also likely to face cross-cultural challenges, especially if you hire engineers abroad. First, it is important to understand that cultural differences aren’t a bad thing and you can even embrace them in such a way that they will create additional value for your project. However, your team members’ cultures should be compatible, strengthening each other instead of triggering misunderstandings and conflicts. You can learn more in our dedicated article.

How to Communicate With IT Candidates From Different Countries

Solution – Extend your HR team with a local talent sourcer

To ensure a cultural match between your team members, it would be wise to partner with a local tech talent sourcer who has a deep understanding of both the job market and the country’s culture. That’s why at Bridge, we have a team of local talent sourcers distributed across the globe. They communicate with the suitable candidates directly, in their native language, ensuring there is both a cultural and a personal fit. 

Challenge #5  – Failing to meet a deadline when hiring for a critical role

Often, companies decide to hire cloud developers in response to the urgent need for cloud migration and cloud infrastructure scaling. In this case, they have to fill the positions urgently but because of the challenges mentioned prior, the time to hire can be significantly longer than expected. From a business perspective, the delay in hiring cloud developers can lead to reduced productivity, weaken disaster recovery capabilities, and the necessity to manage an increased workload. Fortunately, there is a way to hire cloud developers much faster. 

Solution  – Get the first candidates in five days with Bridge

When sourcing top technical talent to our customers, we use a proprietary data talent sourcing engine. It helps us make well-validated talent choices, finding the right candidates in a 900k-wide tech talent pool. Our tech-enabled hiring tool comes with advanced and strong data analysis capabilities, automating most of the sourcing process and allowing us to suggest the first candidates in just five days. 

Conclusion

Hiring cloud developers can be a daunting task. But with a partner like Bridge, it won’t be. So, if you are looking to hire cloud developers fast and effortlessly, we can help. With our sourcing-as-a-service, you can save time, reduce costs, and mitigate risks associated with finding and hiring top talent, so reach out to us now and start hiring top-tier cloud developers for your team.