Mid-level developers are in highest demand, according to tech hiring leaders

Big data and analytics are the top drivers of tech hiring, followed closely by cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, according to HackerRank’s Tech Recruiting Benchmark Report, released on Thursday. Hiring teams should prepare for more bruised elbows in 2020 and beyond as the jostling for talent accelerates. “As every company becomes a tech company, we see increased investment in tech recruiting efforts, ranging from increased headcount to new recruiting tools,” said Vivek Ravisankar, co-founder and CEO at HackerRank.
 
The company, a platform that helps programmers hone their skills and connect with companies, said it surveyed 5,297 tech hiring leaders in 2019, including engineering managers, tech recruiters, and interviewers to learn how best-in-class teams approach tech hiring in a dynamic market.

For companies of all sizes, mid-level developers are in highest demand, followed by senior developers, entry-level developers, and finally, management, the report found. Teams struggle the most to find qualified full-stack developers, machine learning engineers, DevOps engineers, systems architects, and data scientists. The easiest to find are data analysts, HackerRank said.  
 
SEE: How to build a successful developer career (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Even though all companies are in the market for tech talent, recent data gathered by the job search site Indeed revealed that eight of the top 15 jobs were in the tech industry. Software engineering jobs, for one, are expected to grow by hundreds of thousands in the US alone over the coming decade, according to the US Bureau of Labor data.
 
HackerRank said its report provides insight into how companies can compete against FAANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet, formerly Google) to hire and retain talent.
 
“In order for smaller companies or non-traditional tech companies to compete with the tech giants, they need to sell on the impact and potential upside in equity,” Ravisankar said. “You can’t really change the DNA of a Google or a Facebook, but you can for a startup. You can have a material social impact on the world when you join a startup. It’s even more important for smaller startups to hire for skill over pedigree.”
 
“Google and Facebook have their pick of engineers from every school, while everyone else is left competing for the same engineering talent, or trying to understand how to find and attract the millions of other skilled developers around the world,” he added. “These companies should look to their data to tell them where and how they need to improve, and be willing to make real changes.”
 
Among the key takeaways in the report is, as companies’ tech initiatives shift to big data, cloud computing, and AI, so must the technical teams that build them. “And that requires agile, adaptive hiring teams to keep up with tech hiring demands. Keeping a close eye on key benchmarks–like evaluation time investment, time-to-hire, and more–ensures that your team manages the transitions smoothly,” the report found.
 
“Company initiatives dictate the tech you need to build–and subsequently, the talent you need to hire,” the report said. Last year, it noted that IDC predicted big data and business analytics solutions would enjoy double-digit growth through 2022. And Gartner said the cloud services industry would grow exponentially through 2022.
 
For the hiring process, the report looks at the average requisition load, average application volume, application pass through rate, phone screen pass through rate, evaluation time investment, and time to hire.
 
“The fact is, each part of a company’s hiring funnel is highly connected to the rest–for example, as companies optimize their sourcing and screening processes, time to hire naturally improves. This means that even small improvements can have a major impact down the line, so companies of all sizes should be constantly looking for ways to make positive changes,” Ravisankar said.
 
For its part, HackerRank is also hiring. Ravisankar said the company looks for the following in a new hire:

• Fundamental problem-solving skills (ability to dissect a problem into subproblems and convert them to code).
• Proficiency in any dimension of the role: What is this candidate’s superpower? It’s OK if it’s a particular language or a framework.
• Core value fits into the company’s four core values.
• Above all, the company prioritizes skill over pedigree and alignment to its mission of accelerating the world’s innovation.

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