Picking the best developer for your project

Picking the right developer or team to work on your Magento project is a crucial decision with long term impact on the smooth and successful running of your project.  It's a decision that needs to be considered carefully and sometimes it can be hard to choose between different developers who all look great on paper.

We have a wide selection of highly capable, experienced Magento developers at Developer Connection, and while they may all have the coding ability you need, there is likely to be one you connect with who really understands your project and where you are going with it.

So it's about more than just coding ability - finding that development talent you really connect with can help push the project along as you will both very much be on the same page.  You might be interested to read our previous blog about the traits and experiences you will find in the top developer you are looking for as well as our post about building a productive working relationship with your developer to get a fuller picture of what you need to be looking for in a developer or team.

Here we are going to run through the whole process of finding the right development talent for your project from creating your project to looking at developer profiles, to what to look out for when actually talking to matches directly.

Speccing your project

Before you even create your project, you need to be clear about what it is you are trying to achieve, even if it's just a small scale bugfix.  We've got a separate post on the importance of creating a good project spec but essentially detail is key, and this something that other services often very much lack in their project posts.  At some point, you are going to have to know the full level of detail a developer needs to be able to work on your project so you might as well get it clear in your head right at the start.  Make the spec as full as possible - you don't necessarily have to know all the extensions and customisations you are going to need, but the spec should be full enough that someone who knows nothing at all about your project can read it and understand exactly what it is you are trying to achieve.

Creating your project

When it comes to creating your project with us, there are plenty of fields where you can add detail. It's self-explanatory but we do have another post looking at what information you can add in each project field.  Add as much detail from your full project spec as you can, preferably all of it - and remember your project spec is not publicly viewable, it will only be visible to developers who have been matched to your project, and you have chosen to contact.

The point is that with enough detail about a project, any good Magento developer will easily be able to interpret the direct technical requirements of your project from a sufficiently detailed non-technical spec.  Getting as much detail about the project as possible is extremely helpful from a developer perspective - not only does it give a much greater understanding of the requirements right from the start, but it also gives the developer the impression that this is a well thought out project where the client is clear about what they need and is serious about getting it done to a good standard.  So a good spec will get the developer on board and engaged with your project right from the start.

Viewing the developer matches

When you have posted your project you can immediately check for matches against available developers and as they are matched automatically by the skills on their profile, and the project requirements you can be sure every match has the skills they need to work on your project.  So you can take that as a given, but there is more to finding the best match to your project than just knowing the developer has the skills you need.  For each matched developer you will be able to view their complete profile.

Developer profiles

The developer profile is where each developer has the opportunity to showcase not only their skills and experience, but also include a great deal of other key information:

• How long they have been developing the framework
• Open-source contributions
• References
• Certification
• Written summary of their Magento experience
• Relevant work history
• CV
• Relevant external profiles
• A showcase website

Every experienced, quality Magento developer will have a lot to say about their development journey so the first thing to look at is how detailed each developer's profile is.  If you are only looking for more basic work then you might not be too concerned with a more sparse profile that might come with fewer years of Magento development experience.  But if you have a more complex project you will want to be looking at profiles that are fuller with the developer having a greater number of years experience.

Take the time to read each profile in some detail which will give you a great feel for the skills and experience of the developer, and if they are heading up a development team the suitability of the team as a whole.  Remember that this is where the developer is given the opportunity to present their Magento development experiences in the best possible light, so each profile should show you the best the developer or team has to offer.

After reading a profile, if a particular developer stands out then it's a great idea to dig a bit deeper by looking at the details that are external like their open-source projects/contributions, profiles, showcase website, and if you feel like it's needed actually contact any references.

With such a wealth of information, you should then be in an excellent position to decide on the strongest developer for your project and it's time to make contact directly.

Communicating directly

When you decide a developer is a good fit and choose to get their contact details, they will be notified and also be able to see your contact details, and the spec of your project.  At this point, it's time to get in touch with the developer by email or phone (depending on your preference) to allow you to make that final choice between the strongest candidates you identified from their profiles.  But before you do that you will almost certainly want to read about what it takes to become a top Magento developer, and also how to build a productive working relationship from our previous blog posts. These posts will not only give you a fuller picture of a successful client developer relationship, but will also give you plenty of ideas of questions you might want to put to the developer when you contact them.

Weigh the developer's replies to your questions both against the information in the two blog posts, but also against your gut feeling.  With the amount of information you already have, and knowing the reasons you selected the developer as a strong option in the first place, you will often find that your gut feeling on how suitable they might be for your project is the right one.

Making the final decision

Now you should have everything you need to make a confident final choice on who is the right developer or team to use for your project.  So let them know, and congratulations on finding the best Magento developer for your project!

Even though you are not in any way tied into using Developer Connection, it's still important that you start, and once complete end the project from the account area.  This is important for a couple of reasons.  Firstly it affects the automatic matching logic because the system doesn't otherwise know that the developer or team has started work on your project, but it also informs the other developers who have been matched to your project that you have chosen to select another developer on this occasion.

So create your project with us today to get access to our wide range of top UK based Magento developers!