[zachruss92]

This is a pretty good question! When i'm looking to hire this is what I look for: (1) Excellent written and verbal communication. Since there is limited in-person interaction it is paramount that a developer can clearly and effectively communicate about a project/status/whatever.

(2) Asks lots of questions. Builds off of communication.

(3) Be a self-starter/self-motivator. Supervision is very low, so I need to make sure someone can get started/done without a ton of oversight.

(4) Knows how to ask for help. Don't be shy about not knowing something and getting stuck. Sometimes it's better to ask someone for help rather than trying to brute force the issue yourself.

Edit: formatting

[thisjustinm]

Strongly agree with this list. Communication, communication, communication.

When I'm hiring for my remote team I look for communication skills as #1. It's much easier to mentor or get training for someone who lacks some particular technical skill than it is to get someone to pick up a different style of communication.

And to address the other reply saying that 2 and 3 are opposite of each other (even though arkadiytehgraet's tone is mean-spirited I think it deserves clarification) - self-starter is not necessarily about _knowing_ but rather _doing_. An example would be a developer who comes to me and says, "I started working on task X and noticed that it could have an effect on how we store things in the DB so I went and talked to Bob since he's the most knowledgable there and we came up with solution Y and I wanted to run it by you before I start since it differs slightly from what was outlined in the task and may have several other ramifications..."

In this example the developer has taken the lead on their task without relying on constant hand holding or specific direction and has come back with a well thought out and researched solution and _now_ they have some questions.

Put another way, self-starters can take vague or partially defined tasks and come back with a well defined task and lots of questions (which are often the _result_ of the process they went through to better define the task).

[arkadiytehgraet]

Unless this is a some kind of deeply sarcastic/ironic answer, I love it as a prime example of how interviewers do not actually know what they are looking for, and most of their questions are just there to reinforce their initial gut feeling about a candidate.

How can points 2 and 3 even remotely co-exist? They are like completely opposite of each other! You by definition cannot be a self-starter and get work done without oversight, if you require to ask a lot of questions to do anything. Yes, it is always helpful to ask clarifying questions whenever you are not sure about something (and sometimes even when you are sure), but this is like the very opposite of a lack of oversight.

Now you may try to clarify whatever you meant, but, oh no, that would mean that you yourself cannot communicate effectively about what you are actually looking for and what you mean, which makes the first point very vague as well.

[mping]

Of course you can. Someone may not need oversight, but may need guidance. If I hire the best developer on technology X, he will still need guidance navigating my own problems before fixing X's usage.

Also bear in mind that initially you will need some orientation, but the expectation is that you will progress to self starter.

And finally, a good communicator doesn't really need to communicate well all the time.