The shortage of software development talent seems unlikely to clear itself up any time soon—especially given the slew of new and uncertain technologies pouring into the enterprise world. So, what’s an engineering leader in need of fresh talent to do?
Hire generalists, move faster (but more deliberately), and don’t hamstring the hiring process by relying too heavily on in-network tools like referrals, according to a recent Tech Hiring Trends survey by Harris Poll of over 300 engineering leaders commissioned by technical interview platform Karat.
The survey found that just 45% of engineering leaders who responded to the survey were confident they would be able to meet their technical hiring targets, while around 53% reported satisfaction with their software development teams’ performance. It defined the 36% of respondents who met both standards as “top performers” in recruitment.
According to the survey, while the top in-demand professions are data analysts, data engineers, and cloud architects, the cohort of top-performing engineering leaders was “much more likely to prioritize more general roles in their hiring.” Around 45% and 34% of the top performers said they were looking to hire software generalists and full-stack developers, respectively; among other engineering leaders, those percentages fell to 26% and 20%.
Engineering leaders may need these generalists to fill multiple roles on the team, or because they anticipate big shifts in what it will be working on, Karat Principal Engineering Advocate Jason Wodicka told IT Brew.
“Those generalists, the ones who have the core skills, they’ll still be [working] at those companies…when what the market is excited by changes,” Wodicka said. “And that’s the real skill of building an enduring development team. If you invest deeply in the specialty of the day, you might find yourself with a team full of people who are specialized in something that didn’t pan out, that didn’t turn out to be all it was cracked up to be.”
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As an example, Wodicka pointed to blockchain technology—which has yet to find widespread adoption outside digital currency. Interest in other applications of blockchain, like Web3, has faded amid price crashes and regulatory crackdowns.
“I think we are likely to see more real change in the industry from some of the generative AI stuff that’s going on right now than we did from, let’s say, the attempt to put everything on the blockchain,” Wodicka said. “But I still think that our expectation for how impactful [a new technology] is going to be is always going to vastly exceed the real impact it has.”
Other takeaways from the survey data: Engineering leaders who enjoy success in hiring tend to have streamlined recruitment processes, and they’re moving away from sourcing agencies and referrals to cast a wider net when sourcing candidates. Harris Poll found that around 34% of top performers reported referrals were their key resource, whereas 47% of lower performers did.
Top performers also said they can complete the entire hiring process in 17 days on average, whereas other respondents said it took them two weeks longer than that. The difference also showed up in technical interviews, which top performers said took 8.3 days of the process on average, as opposed to 14.6 days for lower performers. Methods to speed up the process, according to Karat, include using job matching and testing tools designed to identify which candidates in a large pool are a good fit (without relying on credentials) and scheduling job interviews early.