This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Little Boss
In the near future it may happen that I will have to start a developer branch for my company in a foreign country. I have immigrated from the country, so I know the language and the culture.
I am a developer with 5 years experience. I have really good social skills and I am already responsible for training new guys in the office. But our team in the office is small (4 developers).
I would say that I am very good with people and I know very well when is the time to be "friend-like" or "boss-like" with people. I am also really excited about this new huge project.
I will be responsible for the people there and the goal is to make the people part if our company, part of the family. They should not feel like cheap foreigners who do our work. I will be visiting the branch multiple times a year. There will be a budget for teambuilding events and holidays. We also will pay a good salary, which is way above average for the locals there. I hope you get the idea. They should feel like part of the team.
I need ideas on how to fulfill this.
Also, this time it is a real management job, so any input on how to manage an IT team is welcome. I am currently in the process to plan everything. What should I look for? What tools should I use?
Right now I think what would be good:
Daily meetings (1 hour~) when I am not there via Microsoft Teams (this way I can participate each day and also control the work). I know it will eat worktime each day, but I am sure its worth it.
Via GitHub I should be able to see that everyone works and does something. I am worried about beeing scamed, for example: the guys we hire outsource their work again to fiverr or somewhere else. But I am sure I would notice this when checking the code.
The hardest part is to find the right people for the team. So the hiring process is really important. Right now what I think:
Find someone online and schedule the first meeting online to get to know the person and whether the "chemistry" fits.
Give them a task to test their programming skills. I know there are some online tools for this (maybe someone can share their experiences with them). In my opinion asking people to write pointless functions is not the way to go. I would prepare a bigger task/project, for example: Create a laravel app with a user login and dashboard and some additional features.
Now I know good programmers who know the worth of their time would just decline (at least thats what I would do). So I would probably pay a small amount for this test project, so their time is not completely wasted, what do you think about this idea?
Last step would be to meet in person for the last interview.
- I know there are some best practices for management like scrum or agile development. We have never used this in my current place, is it worth to learn it?
I would love to hear your input/ideas/experiences!
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Little Boss
Little Boss | Sciencx (2021-10-20T12:17:10+00:00) Managing a small developer team first time in foreign country. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2021/10/20/managing-a-small-developer-team-first-time-in-foreign-country/
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