Investing in the Startup Culture—Remote Developers

Startups are typically young organizations founded by one or more entrepreneurs to develop a unique product or service, and then bring it to market with a variety of tactics. By its nature, the typical startup tends to be a shoestring operation, with initial funding from the founders or their friends and families. There are also VC backed startups that generate much more capital upfront and can be exciting to work for because of all the unexplored potential and growth.

In any case, getting hired onto the team of a new startup is a big investment, whether as a remote or full-time in-person employee. Some things to be aware of before joining such an organization is the orientation of the company, how it presents itself, whether the culture is a healthy one, and what the overall goals are in the short and long term. Understanding such material, which can be acquired simply from reading through the company site (if there is one) can go a long way, especially for remote developers and those who still need to feel invested in the company. Startups, specifically, in their early days demand the work of remote developers to build out their websites and help with their digital needs, and as such the remote team members have to make a considerable investment in the culture they will be spending time in.

Factoring in a company’s orientation

• Someone that is proud of the organization's work and willing to talk about impact in both professional and social settings
• Someone who is open to talking about new experiences and new perspectives regardless of where they come from in life
• Someone who has previously helped organizations significantly grow their fundraising base in a condensed period of time
• Someone who is willing to use LinkedIn or other social networking sites to promote the business of the organization.

How Remote Developers Can Invest in Company Culture

While building out a website and developing features for it is a completely different job responsibility, the above bullets showcase how organizations pinpoint certain behaviors and lifestyles that they want as part of their core team. Although physical distance may separate some candidates from their companies HQ, it doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be psychologically invested in the workings of their team and board, and indeed this is a point of concern especially for remote developers. Workers tend to stay longer at organizations when they are invested in the mission, as well as the lifestyle of the company.

That’s why one way of getting a good match between the mission of an organization and the developer in question is to have some sort of trial period with such a candidate, which is provided by Impactian, an all-inclusive service that links remote developers to clients in need.

Impactian as a platform actually functions to match clients from the startup scene with remote developers and goes through an extensive process of making sure the top developers are matched with prospective clients. Impactian takes some of the best developers in the world and matches them accordingly. If the trial period does not work out, the remote developer will be placed with a new client that might have better mutuality with another firm.

And if the remote developers are doing extremely well with their new client, Impactian provides a buy-out policy so the client can work them on a more full-time basis. Overall, Impactian helps smooth the process of hiring remote developers and reduces some of the ambiguity when it comes to finding the right fit for a project.