How To Efficiently Hire Software Engineers For Your SaaS Startup

One of the most important things in software development, if not THE most important,

Is how your SaaS will be executed.

As you know, poor execution leads to poor results and 0 ROI.

Today I’m going to be talking about a topic I can safely say I’m well experienced in.

In Nortik, we’ve interviewed over 200+ software engineers and hired over 40 of them, leading to delivering over $150 million worth of software products.

Here’s what we learned about hiring high-performing software engineers 👇️

When you start your SaaS journey there is too much to think about:

• Building
• Launching
• Scaling
• Customer support
• Operations
• Marketing
• Sales
• Growth

But I’ll tell you the secret formula of SaaS success:

1. You find a reliable software vendor to build your SaaS
2. You focus on marketing & customers

That’s it.

WHAT?

“I thought I was about to learn how to hire!”

Well… you are!

Whether you’re hiring in-house or outstaffing, you need to have some specifics prepared first.

Let’s dive right into it.

01 Defining the role

Before you start the hiring process, make sure you have a clear understanding of what you’re looking for in a software engineer.

Define the job role, responsibilities, and expectations.

• WHAT do you need help with
• WHAT would be their main responsibilities
• HOW long will you need help with it

These are the essential questions you should ask yourself.

02 Defining the budget

Usually, it will be more costly if you hire in-house than if you leverage outsourcing.

What do I mean by this?

When you outsource, you have the ability to give a 30-day termination notice & not have to worry about overspending on engineers if your product is in the marketing phase.

But first you need to understand your budget.

Take a look at your product timeline.

Take a look at how many features you have & how many months that will take.

1 month has approximately 168 working hours.

Multiply that by your expected hourly rate for an engineer.

Multiply that with the number of engineers you would like to onboard.

Viola.

You have yourself a monthly engineering budget.

And keep in mind:

You could onboard a remote engineer for 50% less yearly compensation than in the US for example.

If you are interested to hire our agency for your SaaS MVP and save both time & money on searching the right talent, and receiving the end product, feel free to contact us here: nortiksoftware.com/contact

03 Searching for agencies & developers from Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe tends to have one of the best software engineering universities in the world.

They provide the best value for money.

There’s a reason why they are the world’s biggest outsourcing center.

Every year around 10-20k new talent is released from every university.

On average Eastern European countries have around 300,000 software engineers.

If you’re targeting the 1%, that leaves you with a pool of ~3000 top-tier engineers from every country to choose from.

Websites like Clutch.co, Pangea.ai or Toptal.com can be your go-to’s for validating software development agencies.

04 Testing the technical & soft skills

Now we jump into the part of how to actually be sure you’re going to hire a high-performing software engineer?

I’m a strong believer that you’re no true software engineer if the ratio between your technical and your soft skills isn’t around 60/40.

Technical skills are important, yes.

BUT.

It’s better to have a decent software engineer with good communication skills.

Than a great software engineer that is a bad communicator.

Good communicators understand your needs & what needs to be built.

In 2025 everyone can code.

Google, ChatGPT, Github Copilot are all tools that can turn a Junior to a Senior in an instant.

But understanding business goals?

That’s the true skillset that will separate high-performing software engineers from the rest.

Seeing that the engineer you’re interviewing is moving in the wrong direction from the start can be a big red flag since it can mean that he/she doesn’t understand the core business logic or problem-solving logic.

This really depends on the situation, but usually, the initial direction the engineer takes in order to solve a specific problem will impact how the rest of the development will play out.

As for the soft skills, try going with the following:

• Describe the biggest problem you faced in your career, how did you approach solving it at first, and how did you actually solve it.
• Situation: The client wants to add a new task to an ongoing sprint. You are on a short deadline. How would you handle this situation?
• Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. How did you handle interactions with that person?
• Tell me about a time when you were asked to do something you had never done before. What did you learn?
• Tell me about a time when you had to juggle several projects at the same time. How did you organize your time? What was the result?

These questions can spark topics such as:

• Adaptability
• Culture add
• Leadership
• Collaboration
• Growth potential

Tricky & “out of the box” questions you can try out:

• Why shouldn’t I hire you?
• How would your manager describe you? And how would your best friend describe you?
• It’s 12 P.M. one year from now. What are you doing?
• It is better to submit a project that’s perfect and late, or one that’s good and on time?

05 Tasking

Also, a popular method in the world of software engineering interviews is providing a take-home or live-coding exercise.

The goal is to have 48 hours to deliver a specific task.

Or just develop the solution on the spot.

Both have their pros and cons.

I recommend doing this technique if you’re a technical founder yourself.

Tasking an engineer with a specific problem can give you a first-hand insight into their problem-solving process.

If you’re not technical yourself, maybe you can skip to the next step.

But if you are, some usual take-home exercises can include:

• Developing a small Reddit clone with nested comments
• Developing a full authentication process
• Developing an admin panel with limited functionality

06 Look for continuous learners

Our world is everchanging.

Technology is everchanging.

So are software engineering practices.

One of the big ideas I’m a preacher of is:

Adaptability is more important than your skillset.

It’s always good to have a team member onboard that adapts to new technologies and trends fast.

With the rise of AI, it’s only a matter of time before specific industries will go extinct & get replaced by robots entirely.

Make sure you & your team are prepared.

07 Look for 3-7 years of experience

Usually where the “expertise” factor starts to kick in.

Engineers below 3 years still have much to learn.

Engineers above 7 years can be too expensive.

That’s why you should aim to hire engineers that fit this experience span.

I hope you found these methods useful & that you will utilize them next time you begin your search for software engineers.

If you’re still uncertain about where to begin – you can contact us for a free call & quote.

We offer our software engineering experts on a 2-week free trial basis in order for you to see if we’re a good fit.

Interested to learn more?