How to Hire a WebRTC Developer (and Why You Should)

Hi, I'm Takhi Levent Levi, founder of Bloggme and webrtc courses. I'm here to break down real time communication technologies so you don't have to this time. I want to help you out in hiring WebRTC developers. Before we start, check out my online courses. I've got two free courses for you. WebRTC basics so you understand a bit about WebRTC as a first timer there. And then there is a WebRTC code lab which helps developers understand and start get a feeling of the WebRTC APIs and how it works. Check them out at webrtccourse.com let's start and talk about hiring WebRTC developers and what makes it so challenging. The thing is that it feels like, you know, looking for a needle in a haystack. There are a lot of developers out there, not many of them are WebRTC developers and there are different levels of skillset and capabilities. Why is that? If you look at that ven chart over there, then you'll see that WebRTC is somewhere in between traditional voice over IP technology and then the Internet. Our web. Now, for people coming from voice over IP technologies, they have been indoctrinated to understanding how voice over IP is done. Now, what signaling do you use, how do you dial, how do you accept calls, what do you do with the media flows? These are things that I know because I started as a Voice over IP developer. So this was my indoctrination. Then comes the Internet, the web, how we do things on the web. And these are vastly different than in Voice over ip. There are different standards, different way of scaling, of looking at things and of tinkering with the things that we're doing, how we develop and how we deploy our products. When I started looking at cloud deployments, I had to relearn things that I thought I knew about voice over IP and I learned them so from someone that was 10 years younger than me, it was a very interesting and humiliating, not humiliating, humbling experience. So when you think about it, think for the developers that you're looking for, which angle are they coming from? The voiceover IP angle or the web angle? Because what they know here is different than what they need to know here, and vice versa. And finding something in the middle means that you need to learn and understand both of these worlds at exactly the same time. Now, the other part of it is that WebRTC is a kind of an iceberg. A lot of the developers that I see today, especially on LinkedIn, when they come and say we're learning. WebRTC here is the first application we've bu built. What you'll find out is that if you scratch the surface a bit, they haven't done much. They've taken and built a peer to peer application that does one on one calling with Stan, not even turn servers. Sometimes they would have that, but it's like the least amount of work that you can do. What they've done and said, well we've done the hello world application of WebRTC. They're not really WebRTC developers. The same way as I don't know Node JS or AI if the only thing that I've done there is did the hello World print in my application. So WebRTC, what you actually need to do once you get past the point of having a one on one call with someone is the iceberg. Below is a lot of things that you need to know. It comes to scaling and media processing and doing that in real time and different devices and doing native applications and servers and multi particles and neural recording. A lot of other things and skills that you need to know and understand. So finding a developer that knows all that becomes quite challenging, especially if you're not coming from that kind of an experience. So how exactly you're going to hire someone when you don't have the way or the means to evaluate their skill set? Let's look now at four different ways in which you can hire WebRTC developers. These are suggestions that I've seen and I've used with my clients over the years. The first technique for hiring developers, I call that one handhunting and poaching. What you want to do here is target either individuals or companies to figure out and find WebRTC developers and see if they would be interested in joining your company. Let's start with the bottom up approach. What we're going to do here is to find individual developers online, probably over LinkedIn or checking who writes about WebRTC. We're looking here for someone that based on their profile fits the type of job description that you've done and matches the skill set that you have in mind. Again, remember that there are different types of WebRTC developers. There are those that fit signaling or media processing or doing the backend stuff or scaling stuff. So it's really important for you to fine tune and decide exactly and define exactly what it is that you're looking for. The second approach there is the top down approach. What we're doing here is that we are going to target a specific vendor. We're going to look for someone that already built something with WebRTC and we trust that the solution that they have. Okay. And try to poach or headhunt employees that they have that know WebRTC. Which companies should you go after? Well, there are those that are firing and downsizing their teams. This is one place to look. Because then there would be people outside that are good, that have been let go, or those that stayed in and think that they're going to be next and might jump ship faster. Then there are those that got acquired. If a company got acquired, a lot of the engineers there are up for finding something else to do. Why? Because that's a point of turmoil within that company. So it's a good time to find them and catch them and try to lure them into your company. The third one is those that have already picked companies that have done it. They have a WebRTC solution. It's good, it's working, it's solid. But if you look at what they've done in last year, it wouldn't be that much good. Developers are going to be bored to death in these places. And that would be a good point and a good opportunity to suggest they come and join you to build something fresh, exciting and new. Okay, so the first one was headhunting and poaching. The second technique to use for hiring WebRTC developer would be to go to a job listing. You take your job description and you post it there. Besides the generic job listing websites out there, you can use WebRTC hacks and WebRTC weekly to sponsor your job listing. Okay. And then you'll be right there where the eyeballs of these developers are found. Another interesting place that you can explore might be Reddit inside the WebRTC channel. Check that one out. Let's face it, hiring WebRTC developer is challenging. There aren't many developers out there that would fit your job description. One approach that I like to suggest, this is my third one, is to look at adjacencies. What does that mean? We've got WebRTC as an industry. Let's go to industries next to it. An adjacency of WebRTC that has skill sets that are similar to what we're looking for. And try hiring there. One approach would you say? Well, let's go to the video streaming industry. People there understand codecs, understand the bit networks and how media flows over the network, and CPU issues on devices, especially on the viewing side. So that might be an interesting avenue to look at. Another one can be video Conferencing. The traditional video conferencing companies have people that know and understand how to build video conferencing applications. Might not be using WebRTC, but that's close enough in many ways. Another adjacency a bit farther away might be voiceover IP. This means doing SIP and a323 type of applications, maybe even XMPP. They will have the understanding of signaling and media, especially on the audio side. And that might be a good approach. Going farther still you can go to those that are building telephony applications. Another one might be software networking. Especially if what you're looking for is, you know, solid signaling and solid approach of how you are going to do the scaling of your application. One thing to remember when you go to these adjacencies, remember that WebRTC comes with a different type of a skill set. So someone coming from a video streaming industry might tell you, for example, the TCP is the best approach for sending media online. It isn't, especially if what you're doing is in real time. Live streaming is different than streaming and requires slightly different skill sets. So when you try to explore with these people if they are a fit for your company, check also how flexible they are in learning new stuff and new things around the things that they already know. So they come with an established understanding of a technology, but they need to extend it and expand it to include also WebRTC and Real Time communications. Bear that in mind. Last approach in house development. If you are unable to find a skilled developer outside, one option is to hire one outside. My suggestion would be the third one to go through an adjacency. The other one would be to find developers that you already have in your company and then train them and skill them up to WebRTC. You need to find these that are starving, are hungry to learn something new and to try new technologies, and are excited about things like media processing and real time communications and signaling and all of the complexities that WebRTC brings with it. If you can find these developers and upskill them, that for me I think would be the best approach to go with. Okay, so that's the fourth one and the last one that I want to suggest to you. Now if you need help with hiring developers for WebRTC, finding where they are trying to bring them, and then interviewing them and understanding if they are fit for your skill set or even writing this job description, come to me. I can be there and help you. I'm doing that with other clients. I'm. I'd love to help you with that one. So that's it for today. You can follow me at blogic me. See you there.