In this article, we will explain how Fora Soft hires people. What an iOS developer should know and what interview stages they complete. Besides, you will also find out about how we carry out the mentoring process and how programmers progress.

Minimal hiring requirements

A developer should know:

  • OOP. This is a programming methodology based on representing a program as a combination of objects
  • Swift, Obj-C (reading the code). Swift is a programming language developed by Apple, and they use it to write programs for all their products. Obj-C is a previous language that Apple used for the apps. Even now one still can create objects with it but people mostly use Swift. However, one needs to at least read Obj-C, as older projects are written in it, and they need support
  • iOS SDK. Knowledge of main frameworks, such as UIKit (work with graphic representation), Foundation (work with network and date), AVKit (work with media), MapKit (work with maps), CoreLocation  (work with geolocation)
  • Apple Guideline. For an app to be approved for AppStore, it has to answer Apple’s requirements. Read Apple documentation to find out more
  • AutoLayout. This is a mechanism for page-making in the app, it is responsible for placing interface elements on the screen
  • Multithreading. It’s important for an app to complete many processes simultaneously. For example, to make a request into a network and show the data loader
  • SOA (REST API, Web Socket). To work with the network, one must understand its organization
  • Git. The version control system is out there to make the project work easier and make it possible to put a group effort into it. Besides, it allows keeping several versions of the same document. It’s also possible to return to earlier versions, determine who and when made a change, etc.

The selection and recruitment process

It consists of

  1. A candidate sends their CV to an HR
  2. HR looks at the CV and calls the candidate if the CV meets the requirements
  3. HR speaks about the company and answers questions. Then an interview happens, where HR tests the candidate’s professional qualifications. The questions are related to the specific position.
  4. If the candidate answers the questions successfully, he is invited to join the next stage – a technical interview with an HR and team lead. The lead does the talking here. He asks not only about the job itself, but about the IT world as well. It’s important to know how well-rounded the candidate is. The HR then conducts an office tour
  5. We invite almost all candidates who passed Step 4 to complete a test assignment within a week
  6. The candidate sends the assignment, which the team lead reviews and sends feedback to the HR. Here the decision whether we invite the candidate to the final interview arises
  7. The CEO attends the final interview. The candidate receives some specific assignment, for example, developing a video call system. The candidate has to explain how they’d like to proceed with the task
  8. We send an offer
«When I find an employee who turns out to be wrong for the job, I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him.»

Akio Morita, Sony founder

As you can see, Fora Soft takes the hiring process very seriously. Let’s take a look at the statistics that the HR department has provided.

JavaScript statistics (relevant for 1,5 months):

  1. 500 candidates
  2. 20% pass the phone interview – 100 people
  3. 40% pass the face-to-face interview – 40 people
  4. 30% complete the test assignment and the technical interview with the team lead – 12 people
  5. 90% pass the final interview with the CEO – 10 people

iOS:

  1. 50 candidates
  2. 50% complete the phone interview – 25
  3. 20% complete the test assignment and the technical interview with the team lead – 5 people
  4. 20% complete the final interview with the CEO – 1 person

To sum it up:

We send an offer to 10 JavaScript developers out of 500, which means 2%

We send an offer to 1 iOS developers out of 50, which is again 2%.

We just showed you the numbers. Go with any output you deem fit 🙂

Mentoring process

The mentor is responsible for:

  • Code review. The new programmer creates a separate branch for it, according to Git Flow. Upon completing the task, the new programmer makes a merge request, and the mentor checks the result. The good mentor will pay attention to the logic behind completing the task, leave their feedback, and send it back for the refinement. If the mentor is satisfied with everything, the merge into the development branch happens. Thanks to this mechanism, it’s possible to see how the new programmer progresses. Over time, the number of comments goes down, and the code immediately ends up in Develop
  • Meetings about the developer’s weak and strong suits. After some time, the mentor will form a professional portrait of the new developer, based on the code, approach to tasks, and other teammates’ feedback. As soon as the portrait is ready, the mentor and the developer talk about everything. These meetings happen quite often, approximately once a month
  • Informational basis (Q&A). The new developer can always ask a mentor for help
  • Task distribution. The mentor determines what the new programmer can do now and what is too early for them. The difficulty of assignments grows as the developer grows

How constant development happens

  • Development plan. Every developer creates the plan of the aims. What is it? We take a period of time and create goals for each month. For example, read book X, learn technology Y, watch conference Z. Upon the completion of each milestone, we put a mark. That way it’s easy to see how the developer progresses
  • A gradual increase in task difficulty. The mentor gives tasks to the developer depending on their difficulty. The good mentor will never assign something the new programmer can’t complete. Over time, the difficulty grows
  • Lectures within the company. Anybody can host a lecture. Found an interesting technology? Learn it yourself and let others know!
  • Collective meeting attendances. We keep an eye on the IT world and meet-ups in other companies. We attend those events together, and then create a short review on them

Conclusion

From the statistics, one can understand that we have very high requirements for candidates, and there’s a reason.

The team guarantees the high quality of Fora Soft products. First, we make hiring decisions carefully. Second, this is a culture of constant development. We keep a close eye at new colleagues and their code, help them find themselves in the company, level up their skills.

Thanks to that, our products have such high quality.

You have to love your work. To do that well, you have to enjoy your work. We at Fora Soft are driven by that desire – do things awesomely. We realize what kind of a person is and whether we pursue the same goals during interviews. We never leave a new employee to be eaten by projects. We are always close to guide, give advice, and just look after.

With all that said, our clients are always happy, which makes us happy, too. We created a cool product and made the client happy? The end-user is also happy because of what we did? That’s the goal we pursue.

  • Processes