How to hire a dedicated developer: The skills-first method that works

The skills-first process for hiring a dedicated developer

When hiring software developers who’ll work on your project remotely or through an agency, you need a process that reveals how they think, solve problems, communicate, and collaborate. 

Here’s how to hire a dedicated developer using a skills-first approach:

Step 1: Get crystal-clear on the real problems you’re hiring them to solve

Many companies start their dedicated developer search by writing a software engineer job description stuffed with technologies: “5+ years Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS…” The list goes on, and every year it seems to get just a little bit longer, exasperating developers.

This is exactly the wrong move. A dedicated developer commits to solving your problem, not to tech stacks or job titles. If the problem is unclear, you will never attract someone who can truly tackle it.

Vitaly Yagodkin, CEO of PhotoGov, agrees that nailing down what you really need is a crucial step. “The biggest mistake companies make when hiring developers is looking for the ‘perfect candidate’ rather than someone who will solve their problem,” he tells TestGorilla. 

When Yagodkin’s team tried to hire a generalist, they wasted a lot of time, but things shifted when they “started looking for an engineer with a specific task – for example, optimizing image processing for the standards of 96+ countries.” Yagodkin says that “hiring [suddenly] became fast and accurate.”

Here's how to put this into practice:

1. Start by writing down the specific product or engineering challenge you need solved. Something concrete like “reduce API response times by 40%” or “migrate our old system to microservices without downtime.”

2. Translate that challenge into outcomes that the dedicated developer will take charge of. What does success look like at 30, 60, 90 days? Document this in a tool like Jira or Linear, so your team can align before you post the role.

3. Then identify the skills tied directly to this problem. If you need someone to re-architect a data pipeline, skills in “Python” matter less than “system design” and “working with legacy code.” 

4. Finally, write your job description using this information. Skip the vague, cringey language like “rockstar” or “ninja.” Be specific about the problem and the autonomy you’re offering. 

5. Share the draft with your engineering team; developers often know best what capabilities someone needs to succeed.

Step 2: Source where real skill and thinking are visible

Edward Tian, founder of GPTZero, once noticed a troubling pattern in his hiring: Applications looked “powerful on paper,” but practical ability was missing. This created a lightbulb moment: “I think the most common pitfall in technical hiring is relying solely on resumes,” he says.

He’s not alone. Our State of Skills-Based Hiring 2025 report found that 58% of sourcing teams struggle to verify whether candidates actually have the skills on their resumes. For dedicated developer hires, this uncertainty is especially risky because you’re trusting one person with significant autonomy.

So, how do you fix this? You start your sourcing where evidence of a developer’s true capabilities is already visible:

• TestGorilla Sourcing gives you access to candidates who’ve already completed talent assessments. You can filter by verified ability in specific technologies before you reach out, completely flipping the traditional funnel so you start with proof.

• GitHub shows you what candidates actually build. Here, you can examine how candidates structure code, write documentation, handle pull requests, and respond to issues. A developer who maintains clean, well-documented side projects demonstrates the habits you need from someone working independently on your codebase.

• Stack Overflow and technical forums reveal how candidates think through problems and explain solutions. Someone who gives clear, patient answers to complex questions will likely communicate well when they hit blockers on your project.

• ContactOut is a Chrome extension that helps you reach developers directly once you’ve found high-signal profiles. Since many developers ignore LinkedIn InMails, having alternative contact methods increases your response rate.

Step 3: Validate technical and interpersonal skills through objective tests

Once candidates are in your pipeline, you need to confirm they can actually do the job. But how you evaluate them matters enormously – especially when you’re hiring dedicated developers who’ll work with minimal supervision.

Traditional interviews tend to reward people who are good at interviewing. Live whiteboard sessions create artificial pressure that doesn’t reflect real work. And resume deep-dives just rehash what you already read.

Skills assessments conducted ahead of interviews are the clear answer. They let you see how candidates approach real tasks and problems before you invest time in conversations.

Tian found that using them transformed his hiring accuracy: “[Candidates’] rationalization and programming instincts only came to light by way of tasking them.” Those who looked stronger on paper often struggled with basic practical problems, while some who had less impressive resumes crushed the actual work.

”For firms seeking out dedicated developers, the message is simple,” he says. ”We need to measure what people are able to do, and not just what their CV states.”

For your dedicated developer candidates, test these capabilities:

• Technical skills should match the problem you defined in Step 1. TestGorilla offers 12 coding tests that candidates can take in a choice of 20 different programming languages, and you can also create custom challenges specific to your job. The important thing is that every candidate gets the same task under the same conditions, so you can compare results fairly.

• Communication skills matter even more for dedicated developers than for in-house hires. They’ll need to flag problems, explain technical trade-offs to non-technical people, and document their work for others. TestGorilla’s Communication skills test helps you assess this before interviews.

• Problem-solving ability predicts how someone will handle the unexpected. When your dedicated developer hits a bug at 2 AM their time, you want confidence they can reason through it. TestGorilla’s cognitive ability tests give you useful information here.

• Autonomy and ownership are harder to test directly, but personality assessments like the Big 5 (OCEAN) test can reveal traits associated with self-direction and conscientiousness.

Step 4: Go deeper with simulations

As George Fironov, co-founder of Talmatic, shares, “Too many teams hire candidates who ace the coding test and then stop there.” But raw coding ability doesn’t guarantee someone can own outcomes, work autonomously, or navigate ambiguity. 

That’s where simulations enter the picture. Fironov suggests assessing candidates through “scenarios representative of natural workflows, including asynchronous collaboration on an assigned task, taking ownership of a vaguely defined task, or even making decisions with realistic constraints.” These scenarios will reveal traits and habits you wouldn’t see firsthand in a talent assessment. 

Here are some simulations you can try:

• Debugging exercises test a skill that dedicated developers use constantly. Give candidates code that runs but has a logical error. Can they read unfamiliar code, identify the problem, and fix it? This mirrors the reality of joining any existing project.

• Feature extensions reveal how candidates integrate new work into existing systems. Provide a small working application and ask them to add functionality. Watch for whether they understand the existing architecture before making changes.

• Async collaboration tasks mimic how you'll actually work together. Tools like GitHub Codespaces or CodeSandbox let you assign a small project for candidates to complete at their own pace. You’ll see their coding habits, documentation style, and how they handle ambiguity in a project definition.

Step 5: Complete the picture with structured behavioral interviews

Once you’ve run simulations to see how your candidates work, it’s time to hold structured behavioral interviews to reveal how they think. 

“Structured” means asking candidates the same questions and scoring responses consistently on a defined scale, such as 1–5. “Behavioral” means using questions focused on real or realistic situations – how a candidate behaved in the past or how they might handle a challenge in the future.

TestGorilla’s AI video interviews make this easy by letting candidates answer these questions asynchronously, so you can compare responses side by side. You can ask things like:

• “Tell me about a time you had to push back on a client request.”

• “Describe a situation where you had to work with incomplete information.”

• Or role-specific prompts, such as front-end interview questions or backend system design questions. 

These questions reveal how candidates frame problems, communicate trade-offs, handle uncertainty, and take ownership – skills that matter just as much as technical ability for dedicated developers. 

To evaluate answers, Yagodkin suggests a simple heuristic: Strong engineers ask, “What's the pain?” – they want to understand the underlying problem before choosing a solution. Weaker ones ask, “Where is it written?” – they focus on following instructions rather than diagnosing root causes.

In other words, you want the person trying to understand why, not just what. When hiring an expert developer working autonomously, this mindset is everything.

Bonus step: Create an environment where dedicated developers can thrive

The dedicated developer model works because it offers focus: one project, one team, deep immersion. But that focus can turn into isolation if you don’t set up the right environment.

A few steps can help you avoid this outcome:

• Define clear expectations for the first 30-90 days. Tie these back to the problem you defined in Step 1. What should they ship? What should they learn? What relationships should they build? Write this down and share it before day one.

• Provide structured onboarding even though they're not a traditional employee. They need to understand your systems, users, and decision-making processes. Tools like Clickboarding can create a guided experience that covers paperwork, introductions, and context-building.

• Maintain documentation and predictable workflows. Dedicated developers need clarity to work independently. When someone works across time zones or outside your office, they can’t tap a colleague on the shoulder for answers. Keep your technical documentation in tools like Notion or Coda, use Jira or Linear for task visibility, and establish communication norms in Slack or Teams. 

• Ask for feedback early and act on it. Dedicated developers see your systems with fresh eyes. They'll notice inefficiencies, documentation gaps, and process friction your team has gone blind to. When you act on their suggestions, you show that their perspective matters and make them more invested in your success.

Hire a dedicated developer with TestGorilla 

The dedicated developer model gives you focused expertise without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire. But that value depends entirely on choosing the right person. You need real evidence of their technical skills, communication ability, problem-solving approach, and capacity to work independently.

That’s where TestGorilla helps. You can source from a global pool of candidates who’ve proven their skills, run objective talent assessments to see how they think and work, and use structured interviews that reveal their strengths and weaknesses in full clarity. 

Want to learn more? Create a free TestGorilla account today, or book a free demo to see how the platform can support your team.

Contributors

• George Fironov, Talmatic, Co-Founder & CEO

• Vitaly Yagodkin, PhotoGov, CEO

• Edward Tian, GPTZero, Founder