| > . We seem to do stuff that's out of the normal experience (Python to create thousands of individual reports on thousands of rows of postgres data per report) Sounds like you need somebody that knows Python and SQL, should be easy to find. Everybody thats been in the business for a while has done reports. However everybody also hates doing reports, so you might have to pay more than you want to, or hire interns to do it. > A maintainer who can find their way through an ugly codebase and quickly fix bugs that are identified by people who know the business domain thoroughly I would just look for somebody experienced then, maybe 3 years +. Its going to cost more though, especially if the codebase is ugly and most of the work is reports. > I've been largely responsible for hiring developers (usually on contract) Hiring on contract is unlikely to get you desirable hires. Good devs have a lot of options. My somewhat generic advice is to have a coding assignment. Some people won't do them but its the best way I've found to screen candidate quality. Equally important is to have a good developer look at the submissions. The quality of code as rated by good devs has always correlated strongly with the quality produced once hired, at least from what I've seen. Advice for your situation specifically is to offer a lot of money and don't do contract-to-hire. Reports suck, your codebase sucks. Good developers can find another job within weeks and won't stick around unless you make it worthwhile. Most desirable hires will outright refuse contract-to-hire so you're restricting yourself to a low quality talent pool already. You can nab good people for a lucklustere job without paying a premium if you're willing to give rare concessions. Fully remote work, flexible hours, part time, 4 day schedule, relative autonomy, etc. If you can't do that or pay well turnover will remain high. You're not in a good spot right now. If you're open and honest about the job "writing reports in a crappy codebase" you won't get many interested hires and those you find will ask for more money. If you lie/deflect you will hire more but turnover will be insane. Your best option may be to hire interns. They will expect the job/code to suck and ask for little money. Turnover will remain high and quality will be all over the place, but at least it will be cheap. |
That seems like an odd thing to say. Where do you jump from "undesirable" to "low quality"? Isn't it exactly the undesirable but fair quality people who are stuck doing contract to hire? That is, those who are undervalued in the marketplace? It seems like a doubtful plan to insist on only chasing people who don't need the position you want to fill and probably don't want to do it.