If you’re an HR professional or business owner in the technology space, you don’t need us to tell you how to interview software engineers for your company. Whiteboarding, collaborative coding, and interview questions to assess skills, work ethic, and culture fit are second nature to you.
But, as the world of work shifts and more and more roles become hybrid or fully remote, you may find yourself in a situation where you have to transition your previously in-person hiring processes to the online world.
As you well know, hiring is an expensive and often time-consuming endeavour. In fact, a report published by Devskiller quotes the cost of hiring a software developer around $50,000+ when factoring in things like recruitment costs, internal costs for employees who handle the hiring, and loss of productivity while the role remains unfilled.
The average length of time it takes a company to find the perfect software engineer for the role? Forty-three days, which will feel like forever when you have projects piling up.
Simply put, recruiting and hiring software engineers is a massive investment of both time and money for your organization — one that doesn’t come without its risks.
What if you hire someone who was a strong interviewee but not as technically proficient in practice? What if they don’t fit in well with the existing team? What if they quickly realize the role is not suitable for them and they abandon ship, quitting within the first few weeks?
All of these worst-case scenarios are possible, of course, but unlikely — provided you have well-managed, refined recruitment processes in place that ensure you are attracting and vetting only the best. Of course, mistakes happen and it can be a major blow when you don’t get hiring right the first time around. Thankfully, there are countless popular project management software to ensure you are properly assessing and vetting your remote teams, so you can be confident your investments in both time and money during the recruitment process will pay off in the long run.
We have rounded up some workflow automation and collaboration tools that will help you flawlessly execute your remote software engineering interviews. In this article, we break down the best tools, technologies, and processes you need to improve to improve the experience of hiring managers and candidates and stay up to date.
After all, a positive recruitment and interview experience is the first introduction your potential employees have to your company, and the smoother you can make the process, the more likely they are to accept your offer. Getting hiring right the first time around saves time and money, and preserves brand reputation, which are critical for tech companies big and small.
Interview Elements when Hiring a Remote Software Engineer
For project managers hiring global teams, the terms screening, collaborative coding, and whiteboarding are second nature.These elements are the backbone of software engineering interviews and executing them well can make or break your recruiting experience.
Thankfully, there are tons of ways to execute these elements of your interview flawlessly from a distance, leveraging video conferencing platforms and collaborative tools that integrate seamlessly into your preferred communication tools.
Screening Software Developers
The first step before the interview is screening your potential candidates. For a highly coveted role, you can get thousands of applicants. How do you sift through the resumes to whittle down a list you’re willing to meet with and more seriously consider? Technical screening solutions can streamline the process and refine the candidate pool.
Technical skills screening software helps companies evaluate the technical abilities of prospective employees and make data-driven decisions. In just a few clicks, organizations can use technical skills testing to conduct interviews for technical roles and assess candidates’ proficiency in technical skills, particularly coding.
These tests provide you with multiple coding language options and tests at varying levels of difficulty so you can adapt them depending on the type of role you are hiring for. You also have the ability to rank each candidate’s performance, helping you assess the candidate pool and shortlist individuals that most closely align with your needs for the role. Ultimately, these platforms are also useful tools for filtering out unqualified candidates early on in the recruiting process, enabling you to manage your own and your candidate’s time better.
These technical screening solutions also work well for remote interviewing and remote-first companies as they integrate into video conferencing software and/or have built-in live video capabilities.
Collaborative Coding
Collaborative coding — also referred to as shared coding — is just another name for pair programming, which is when two software engineers are paired up together on one workstation to solve a technical problem.
It is a common interview technique developed in the agile team framework and a way for companies to accurately assess how your software engineering candidate would work within a team environment at your company.
For remote, global teams this aspect of the software engineering interview process will be conducted entirely online, typically via shared screen and/or over the phone.
Not sure what makes a great collaborative coding tool? There are a couple of factors you will want to consider, namely ease of use for both you and your interviewees, with features that provide the most unbiased, fluid experience. These features include:
- Voice, video, and messaging chat options
- Multiplayer experience that can accommodate more than just two people
- Full access to one’s usual local development environment and tooling. Great collaborative coding tools transcend traditional pair programming limitations and let both participants enjoy the setup they’re already comfortable with.
- A fluid and responsive experience to keep the remote experience smooth and uninterrupted.
Flexibility for various use cases
Whiteboarding
Whiteboard interviews are a style of interview question that assesses both the technical and non-technical skills of your remote software engineering candidate. They vary but typically fall under two distinct categories:
- algorithm and data structure problems or,
- abstract systems design and architecture-based questions
Whiteboard interviews are a collaborative effort, where both the interviewee and the interviewer work together to solve a high-level problem.
For employers, whiteboard interviews provide a way for you to assess how the candidate reacts to and incorporates feedback, explains concepts, and plans processes before starting to actually write the necessary code to solve the problem.
While Whiteboarding can be done remotely using platforms we outline later on in the article, there are alternatives to this approach that may work better for you and your company’s unique needs.
Some interviewers opt to assign take-home projects instead, which is useful for interviewers who are more interested in seeing how the potential employee works in their own environment - the same one they will most likely be conducting the majority of their remote, software engineering work from.
This approach more closely reflects a typical workday and allows the candidate to focus, removing the need for real-time communication with the interviewer.
Depending on the nature of your organization and the type of projects the successful candidate will be working on, this approach might be the better route to take. Again, platforms that can help facilitate this interviewing approach are described in greater detail below.
10 Virtual Project Management Tools that Facilitate Interviews
Here are some of the best project management software and screening platforms that enable you to conduct all the key elements of a software engineering interview remotely. This includes collaborative coding exercises, a virtual whiteboard, and project managing the recruitment process so you never miss a beat and hire the qualified, top-tier talent your company needs, quickly and efficiently.
HackerRank
HackerRank is a developer skills platform that helps businesses evaluate software developers based on skill. Packed with key features, it reduces the time to hire, allows you to better evaluate strengths and weaknesses, and creates a consistent hiring bar.
TestGorilla
With TestGorilla, you can use multiple question types to help you conduct one-way video interviews, allow candidates to upload portfolios, and more. TestGorilla also has other features, giving you the tools to evaluate job applicants’ skills through a library of skills tests. This provides companies with the best predictive value to help them identify top candidates. These and more advanced features help companies make better hiring decisions, faster as you sift through different users.
CodeSignal
CodeSignal is the leading technical interview and assessment solution that helps companies identify the right candidates with the right skills—even if they don’t have the “right” profile.
CodeSignal’s Pre-Screen, Tech Screen, and Interview are core features that provide advanced job simulation technology across the entire hiring process. As a result, teams can conduct fair and predictive evaluations using advanced reporting capabilities and analytics, saving valuable engineering resources, providing a better candidate experience, and hiring the right talent, fast.
Woven
Woven is a technical assessment platform that goes way beyond code to help engineering leaders vet and hire experienced engineers. Woven assessments are double-blind scored by real engineers against an obsessively detailed rubric with same-day results and feedback. No technical recruiter? Woven can source pre-vetted senior engineers for you. The best part, you get access to a free version when you test it out and the paid plan only charges you when you successfully hire. Bonus? Unlimited users.
Glider AI
Glide AI provides hiring solutions including skill tests, pre-hire assessments, coding/video interviews, one-way interviews, Conversational Screening Chatbots, and additional features to enable the hiring of quality talent at scale for Enterprises, Staffing Firms, and MSPs.
Glider AI is used by over 50% of the world’s top IT suppliers and global enterprises looking to vet, place, hire, and retain quality talent at scale with confidence for full-time, contingent, technical, or non-technical roles. There’s even an enterprise plan for organizations who need to hire and retain large workforces.
CoderPad
CoderPad empowers technology teams worldwide to screen and interview software engineers with gamified assessments, take-home projects, and live paired programming interviews able to handle multiple users. CoderPad Screen is our best-in-class technical screening tool to help teams filter candidates based on their coding skills in a fast, unbiased, and anything-but-boring way.
iMocha
iMocha provides skill-based Talent Analytics that help Enterprises make intelligent Talent decisions, from hiring to when they retire. It is a comprehensive assessment platform that’s fully customizable with an intuitive interface.
eSkill
eSkill provides skills and behavioral assessment tools that help organizations hire, train, and retain top candidates. Clients have access to over 800 standard assessments in the eSkill Assessment Library and can also use the eSkill Author to create customized employment tests.
Karat
The Interviewing Cloud is an always-on, consistent human + technology solution for conducting predictive, fair, and enjoyable technical interviews 24/7. Karat’s global network of Interview Engineers, unparalleled market intelligence, and purpose-built interviewing infrastructure accelerate engineering hiring, improve diversity outcomes, and elevate the quality of hires. The learning curve for organizations and candidates alike is simple with integration capabilities so you can seamlessly connect with existing systems you already use, like task management tool Notion.
Visual Studio LiveShare
With Live Share you can instantly share your project with your peers from the comfort of your own tools. No need to clone a repo or set up the environment, to get sharing.
Your company’s own unique needs will determine which platform works best for your hiring goals. But one thing is for sure, conducting your software engineering interviews remotely does not sacrifice quality. Feel confident that you can recruit, interview and hire top talent from anywhere in the world, leveraging the latest in technology, and tools.
Managing Your Remote Team of Software Engineers
Now that you’ve hired your remote software engineering team, here are some tips for effective management. Remote work does not come without its challenges. Here are some you may face as a remote, global employer:
- Poor communication
- Lack of cohesion and processes
- No clear responsibilities or tasks outlined for employees
- Difficulty tracking employee performance
- Building corporate culture
- Managing different time zones
- Project collaboration may pose challenges
- Inefficient onboarding processes
- Figuring out global payroll
However, with the right tools, processes, and policies in place, these challenges can be managed. But, how, exactly?
Communication
Communication issues can be solved by having the right asynchronous tools and software available. There are tons of tools to choose from and many are designed specifically with remote work in mind. Platforms like Slack, Zoom, Teams, Asana, and even WhatsApp can help keep your employees connected and on track. You may also want to consider scheduling one-on-ones and team check-ins on a weekly basis for further connection and relationship building.
Processes
To ensure employees are aware of the proper processes in place, have standard operating procedures clearly outlined in an easily accessible location on their laptops. As well, consider adopting task management tools and project management software to better streamline work and encourage asynchronous communications. Effective project management is a critical process that can make or break a project and a candidate's experience working for your company. As a project manager, make sure to outline these processes and provide access to all necessary platforms as part of their onboarding.
Responsibilities and tasks
It's important to plan and manage your entire project, including portfolio management, resource management, and project costs. This can be resolved by having project management software and tools in place. Notion, Monday, Trello, or Wrike help manage projects by updating status, assigning tasks, and organizing automated tasks. These systems boost productivity and ensure everyone is on the same page when it comes to completing a task.
Tracking employee performance
Tracking employee productivity in a remote team is a challenge for remote employers. But, with the right project management tools in place and the structures outlined, employers can trust that their employees are remaining organized and on track.
Creating an inclusive and positive company culture
Employers should make an effort for each employee to get to know each other, even across departments. Doing this helps create an inclusive, positive, and open company culture. This can be done by having virtual team-building events, or even giving employees the opportunity to showcase something unique about themselves at the end of a weekly team meeting.
Being respectful of time
Companies that have remote employees need to be respectful of the various time zones each team member may be operating within. Rather than work core hours throughout the day, employers should look into adopting nonlinear work days.
Looking for more tips, tricks and insights as it relates to talent acquisition, onboarding and managing remote, global teams? Check out the Borderless blog.
Disclaimer
Borderless does not provide legal services or legal advice to anyone. This includes customers, contractors, employees, partners, and the general public. We are not lawyers or paralegals. Please read our full disclaimer here.
