Smartphone apps have become the heart of all businesses. You might be a business that wants to strengthen its...
Smartphone apps have become the heart of all businesses. You might be a business that wants to strengthen its digital presence, or you have an app idea that you want to sell. In both cases, developing an app will not be an easy job as it requires patience, expertise, and experience.
You will need efficient app developers, and you will need them asap. But hiring one is not going to be easy in 2021. As per Statista, iOS is the second-highest-used smartphone OS, but it accounts for only 23% of the overall smartphone users.
You might now think, why should an iOS user be your target audience to sell something if Android has the highest share of users? The answer is spending capacity. iOS has a customer spending of 87.3% more than Android users. Being said that, hiring an iOS developer is in itself a challenge.
We have a set of ideas that can help you hire the best iOS developers from the field. So, let's get started.
Prerequisites
Before you hire an iOS developer, you should be sure about the expectations you want to set with them. The very first question will be if you need an iOS developer or an iOS development company. Check out a few prerequisites as we discuss them:
Define your app idea before you start looking for an iOS developer. You should first know what you want to get developed since that will help you choose the right platform and developer. The best way to do it is to write a small paragraph or two or three lines about the app idea.
When you start documenting the app idea, you will get in the mindset and nurture your idea further. Prepare use cases, problems/solutions and so on to sort this out in a better manner.
Once the app idea is ready, set up long and short-term goals. Pitching the idea to the investor, ranking the app at the top of the Apple app store can be some short and long-term goals. Receiving thousands of downloads can be another goal. Goal setting and analysis help you make the app successful and plan out activities to build that app.
Priorities are essential to set, especially for an app development project. You might have one of the best app ideas performing the right functions at the given time. But, time is the essence, and waiting might not be an option if you are a business person. Even the perfect app ideas can get obsolete with time because someone will capitalize on a similar idea.
Even the functionalities can develop limitations with time and make your app obsolete, so you should immediately start creating and updating.
Once you have entirely documented and put down all these ideas, it is time to go ahead and find or hire an iOS developer that can help you achieve them. Let us move forward and discuss how to hire an iOS app developer.
Hire iOS App Developers
There are three ways in which you can go ahead and hire iOS app developers. However, you should hire iOS developers based on their qualifications and the zeal to help you achieve your goals as you have planned. Here are a few things you might want to know before you hire an app developer.
You should hire experienced iOS app developers as they can assist you in achieving your goals faster. Plus, these iOS app developers have experience working in different niches that help you complete the project efficiently. Also, they can give their valuable inputs to set priorities and make the workflow efficient and strong.
Experience brings knowledge, and knowledge helps in tackling issues proactively. This is the exact mindset you need from an app developer.
See if they have a good portfolio that matches the skill set you are looking for in them. A portfolio will give you an idea of their workflow, methodologies and discipline through designs and functionalities added. Another thing you can gauge with a solid portfolio is their attention to detail.
An iOS app developer might have to speak and communicate with various stakeholders to run the development process efficiently. To do that, there are specific soft skills that they need to master. For example, being a team player, having excellent communication skills (oral and written), time management, etc.
You can easily judge their skill sets during the interview by asking them questions about these skills.
Different Options to Hire iOS App Developers
Now that you are clear about the qualities to look out for in an iOS app developer, we suggest looking for ways to hire them. It is not always possible for you to do everything to fulfil your goals. Therefore, you might have to go a little ahead of being a one-person army and let the pros do the job.
Here are three popular ways you can hire iOS app developers:
Right now, this is the most popular hiring option for most independent developers and early startups. Going for freelance developers can be fruitful for you or your company for many reasons. One of them is you get to work with some of the most talented developers across the world. You don't need to manage them and their perks personally; all they ask is for a deserving salary majorly on an hourly-basis format.
On the flip side, freelancers come with a risk of deadline breach. What happens in cases like this is that your project goes for a toss or they prioritize high-ticket clients over you. So, if you want to work with a freelancer, make sure there is a set terms and conditions contract in place, so the transparency is maintained.
Another popular way of doing this is hiring an in-house team of developers who can take care of your project from scratch and assist you in the maintenance phase. The advantage of hiring an in-house team is that they can study the project requirement better. Plus, they can also help you in developing many more such apps in the future.
On the flip side, you will have to give them a salary, overtime in case of extra hours and most importantly, other benefits like Provident fund deductions. Apart from this, you will also be expected to give them a deserving raise every financial year.
If you are not happy with the two options discussed above, you will like the third, most important one. You can hire an agency that can help you in fulfilling your requirements. You can outsource your whole project to an agency that has experience in making such apps.
All you have to do is find a reliable iOS app development agency. You can use websites like Clutch or GoodFirm platforms.
Hiring an app agency can be the best way to hire an app developer since they have all the resources and expertise to understand your project. They will also ensure that you get the project completed in time and with accuracy.
You can hire iOS developers in one of the three ways we discussed, but we feel you should go the agency route. As we mentioned, all you have to do is give your requirements and let the agency take it ahead while they update you on completing the app development process.