How to Find & Train World-Class Engineers Overseas - Christina Sass, Andela

1. Scaling Up with
Distributed Teams
Christina Sass
Co-founder & President, Andela

2. 2
Myths about Software
Developers….

3. Other Myths...
● I will be able to scale my team with only senior
developers
● I will be able to hire all the best senior developers
locally
● I will be able to hire all the best diverse senior
developers locally
● I will be able to retain the best diverse developer talent
3

4. Reality: There is a massive shortage of software engineers
5
open jobs for every
software developer
looking for one
1.4M
software jobs went
unfilled in 2016

5. There is a massive shortage of software engineers
5
open jobs for every
software developer
looking for one
5
open jobs for
every software
developer looking
for one
1.4M
software jobs went
unfilled in 2016

6. There is a massive shortage of software engineers
5
open jobs for every
software developer
looking for one
5
open jobs for
every software
developer looking
for one
1.4M
software jobs went
unfilled in 2016
1M
more jobs than
graduates in the
US by 2020

7. 7
36,000 engineers say that these are their top hiring challenges
Hard to assess skills 61%
Time-consuming interviews 47%
Lack of candidates 41%
Lack of diversity 28%
Effective job description 27%
Competition 22%
HackerRank 2018 Developer Skills Report
The hiring challenge
Average cost to hire a
developer
Hours to recruit, assess
and interview a developer

8. Remote working trends have increased
1995
2015
300% increase
in employees doing distributed work
37%
distributed*
* estimate

9. Technology has eliminated traditional barriers to remote working

10. Companies must build their distributed muscles to succeed
“Co-location has no impact on
team effectiveness at Google.”

11. 11
Diversity Matters to your bottom line.
● Top quartile for ethnic and racial
diversity in management → 35%
more likely to have financial
returns above industry mean.
● Top quartile for gender diversity
→ 15% more likely to have
returns above the industry
mean.
2015 McKinsey report

12. 12
Global Products need Global Teams.

13. There are 21M Software developers globally.
● ~3M in the US.
● ~4.4M in North America.
13

14. There’s a massive opportunity for global talent recruitment
1.4M
OPEN SOFTWARE
ENGINEERING JOBS IN U.S.
BY 2020
x
$105K
AVERAGE SALARY
=
$147B
U.S. MARKET
SKILLS GAP
1.2B +
POPULATION
+
45% +
UNEMPLOYED
=
Largest pool of untapped
human capital in the world
60%
UNDER 35

15. Distributed teams get diverse top talent
“
Ruby
Yettie Sanni
Graduated from University of
Ilorin with a CS degree
Working with OpenFan, a
consumer analytics startup
based in Los Angeles.
Founder of Tech in Pink
ON THE FUTURE I’d love to set up
the first Artificial Intelligence
Research Institute in Nigeria
and spread it to the rest of
the continent.”
LAGOS, NIGERIA
andela-ysanni

16. Truths:
● Teams that scale GROW senior tech talent.
● Teams that scale FIND the best developers wherever
they are.
● The best diverse developers are likely NOT LOCAL.
That’s a good thing.
● Diverse teams retain the best diverse talent.
16

17. Andela Developer
Andela Uganda Campus, 2018

18. Distributed teams scale.
christina@andela.com