Hire top Back-End developers to grow your startup

How to hire Back-End developers at startups in 2023

Explore our guide on how to look for a back-end engineer for your startup. We’re covering everything from skills to look for when hiring, to creating a hiring funnel for back-end developer candidates.

Are you looking to hire a Back-End developer?

Back-end developers refer to the server side of development. Roles and responsibilities include designing, building, and developing the back end of a site or application. It’s commonly referred to as “behind-the-scenes” activities focused on databases, APIs, and servers. Back-end web development is essential to creating applications and is considered the backbone of the internet.

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What skills should you look for when hiring a Back-End developer?

Top skills for Back-End developers at startups

Back-End Programming languages

‍The main skill for a Back-End developer is their knowledge and expertise with back-end or server-side programming languages. The most common programming languages you’ll want to hire for include Ruby, Java, Python, and PHP. Understand a candidates skill level within the programming languages and if they have previous projects or programs they can point to as experience.

Databases

‍Familiarity and experience with databases including SQL, NoSQL, MySQL, SQLServer, MongoDB, Oracle, etc. are other critical skills to screen for in the hiring process. Database skills are used to create, read, update, or delete data on the back end and are a large part of a back-end developers role and responsibility at a startup.

Cloud Computing

‍Does your candidate have experience with cloud computing? Cloud computing is a critical skill to find in a back-end engineer candidate because it showcases their expertise in server handling and scaling a program. Many startups are specifically looking for back-end developers who have previous experience or a willingness to learn about cloud computing.

APIs

‍Backend developers should also know about APIs - the medium which enables data transfer. The most popular APIs among back-end developers are JSON, SOAP, AJAX, REST, etc. Understand a candidate's ability to manage and use various APIs will be essential when recruiting back-end developers for your startup.

Frameworks

‍The most popular back-end frameworks for back-end engineers include NodeJS, Django, Ruby on Rails, Laravel, and Flask. Scan for a candidate's experience and expertise with various frameworks. Do they have relevant experience in the framework your startup uses? Or similar experiences with relevant frameworks?

Version Control Systems

‍Screen for experience from back-end engineers with version control systems including AWS Commit, GitHub, and GitLab. These tools will help the back-end engineer manage source code changes over time and can help create more efficiencies among your engineering team.

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The most popular Back-End developer skills and frameworks

When hiring for an engineer, you’re mainly looking for a skill match.

Back-End developers should have a strong background in back-end programming languages including Ruby, Java, Python, and PHP. Familiarity with databases, cloud computing, and frameworks including Nodejs. As for many engineers, knowledge of front-end engineering languages such as HTML/CSS and various version control systems are an important skill to have to work efficiently at a startup.

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Back-End developers at startups

Attract top Back-End developer talent through your Wellfound job postings

On Wellfound, companies can post a Back-end developer job and review applicants for free. When posting a job for Back-End developers, write a job posting to attract the right engineering talent. Here are a few tips:

• Add related fields: title, location, skills, and more. These relevant fields help your job post show up in the candidate’s job searches more frequently. Be sure to include “Back-end” in the job description.
• Fill out the job posting to describe your company, role, and ideal candidate. Wellfound job postings have a free-form section to explain more about the company, role, and what you’re hiring for. For a job post hiring back-end engineers, include:

1. Startup name
2. Title
3. Main Back-End engineer responsibilities
4. Back-end programming languages required
5. Qualifications for Back-End developers (i.e. frameworks, databases, etc.)
6. Preferred or ideal skills from Back-End developers

• Set up your company profile. A candidate will usually first click on their company profile to learn more when evaluating a company’s job post. Update your company profile so all sections are filled out — candidates rely on this to inform their job search!

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Top Back-End developers are on Wellfound

On Wellfound, you can discover back-end developer candidates by Sourcing — instead of posting a job and waiting for candidates to apply, you can find potential candidates and pitch your opportunity directly to them.

The majority of back-end developer candidates on Wellfound are specifically interested in joining a startup. With Source, our team provides key information including which candidates are actively looking for a job, what skills they have, their ideal salary, and more.

When sourcing for Back-End developers on Wellfound, we suggest adding the following:

• Role and Title: Begin your search by filtering for those with a current or previous “Back-end engineer” title. Depending on your needs, you could also include terms like “java developer” to widen your search to help filter candidates with matching titles.
• Back-End Engineer Required Skills: Add specific languages and technologies you’re looking for experience in - in this case, Java, Python, PHP, and more. Your search will depend on what technologies your codebase is in.
• Location Preferences: Filter for candidates on remote preferences or in a specific location (whether they’re only open to remote, only open to in-office, or both). If you’re looking for remote Back-End developers, you can also search by remote Back-End candidates in specific time zones.
• Level of Experience for Back-End Engineers: This is where you can clarify the level of experience of the Back-End engineers you’re looking for. If you’re open to multiple levels for Back-End related positions, you can always leave this filter open to allow a broader range of candidates to show up.

From there, you’ll see different lists appear based on whether they are passive Back-End candidates (open to interviews, but not actively looking), active Back-End candidates (actively looking and ready to interview), or curated Back-End candidates (ready to interview and have been vetted and recommended by our team).

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Get involved and meet Back-End developers

One other way of connecting with Back-End developers is through different communities or events in the startup community. Explore the full stack and Back-End communities you can get in touch with to connect with talented Back-End developers:Back-End Events and Hackathons

• Dev Events
• RubyConf

Back-End Communities

• DEV Community - BackEnd
• GitHub Back End Community

Back-End Discord Channels

• Python
• The Coding Den

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Create an effective hiring process for Back-End developers:

Hiring funnel steps for Back-End developers

• Initial Phone Screen: For your first screen with a back-end developer candidate, the conversation should be behavioral. Look for a candidate’s problem-solving skills. Does the candidate showcase an excitement for the role? Do they have previous projects showcasing their coding abilities? Ask about and dig deeper into their number of years of experience working in the codebase or similar/relevant technologies.
• Hiring Manager Call: Hiring managers should press further into past Back-End development experiences. What is the engineers interests and motivations? What is their preferred working style? Focus on the “culture fit” component and whether the candidate seems like they have the soft skills needed in the role.
• Technical Interview: There are multiple ways to test a back-end developer’s coding abilities for technical interviews. Most commonly, companies will include a coding test or a project-based exercise.

• For coding tests, startups have used platforms including TopCoder and CoderPad. Note: coding assessments such as these are becoming more and more outdated, as they can often be limited to only certain styles of work.
• For Back-End developers, typically the technical interview includes questions about the candidate’s understanding of Back-End programming languages. For example, What is CAP Theorem? What does REST stand for? During this portion, the most important thing is to evaluate their skill level in Back-End development. A hiring manager may also evaluate is how the candidate solves problems and ask questions about previous Back-End projects and solutions a candidate has worked on.
  

Hiring your first Back-End engineer? Read our blog post for more information on how to hire your first engineer in 5 steps.

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Example interview questions for Back-End developers

• What programming languages are you familiar with?
• Tell us about your experience with back-end programming languages.
• What does REST stand for?
• Explain to us some performance testing best practices.
• What is CAP Theorem?
• Describe a difficult problem you had to debug. What was the issue and how did you resolve it?

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Salaries and compensation for Back-End developers

Determine a competitive salary you can offer Back-End developer candidate by comparing market data for Back-End developer positions. Take a look at levels.fyi, a popular tool among Back-End developer candidates to see the ranges of market salaries. Leverage Wellfound's salary tool to see how your offer for Back-End developers stacks up against other jobs on our platform.

If you can’t meet a competitive salary and still want to hire top back-end engineering talent, double down on the other offer benefits. Are there unique company benefits? Is there equity, stock options, or other compensation you can provide? Discuss with candidates the additional benefits beyond salary during the negotiation and interview process.

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Hire Back-End developers globally

Interview the top 1% of Back-End developers today and hire 3x faster with Wellfound.

Now you’re ready to start looking 👀You’ve learned how to determine the type of Back-End engineer to hire, ways to find Back-End developers for your team, and the basics of setting up your hiring process. Post your job on Wellfound and start sourcing top Back-End developers today.