Dedicated WordPress Developers – EngineerBabu Blog https://engineerbabu.com/blog Hire Dedicated Virtual Employee in Any domain; Start at $1000 - $2999/month ( Content, Design, Marketing, Engineering, Managers, QA ) Mon, 23 Aug 2021 13:16:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.11 How To Hire A WordPress Developer? https://engineerbabu.com/blog/how-to-hire-a-wordpress-developer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-hire-a-wordpress-developer https://engineerbabu.com/blog/how-to-hire-a-wordpress-developer/#boombox_comments Mon, 23 Aug 2021 13:16:28 +0000 https://engineerbabu.com/blog/?p=19220 When it is about building a customized WordPress website, you think about whether to hire a WordPress developer or do-it-yourself? Evidently, hiring a skilled WordPress developer can be a gruesome, daunting, and a time taking task. Whereas, a skilled WordPress developer can take your simple website to a new level, differentiating it from a wide...

The post How To Hire A WordPress Developer? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

]]>
When it is about building a customized WordPress website, you think about whether to hire a WordPress developer or do-it-yourself? Evidently, hiring a skilled WordPress developer can be a gruesome, daunting, and a time taking task. Whereas, a skilled WordPress developer can take your simple website to a new level, differentiating it from a wide pool of websites using the same available templates and SEO strategies. 

WordPress is currently one of the most popular and biggest Content Management Systems in the world. It is used for building personal blogs to most creative and interactive websites. Hence, there are 55,000+ plugins and more than 31,000 themes available for WordPress Developers to make best customized WordPress development. This makes WordPress the number one choice among developers and businesses to build websites or blogs.

These statistics depict there is no shortage of WordPress developers around the world. So, the question arises, how to hire a WordPress developer from the sea of talent, and what to look for while outsourcing WordPress development? Let’s try to answer such questions and learn how to hire a WordPress developer.

When to Hire A WordPress Developer?

Basically, a WordPress developer in a tech-architect, or someone who develops or supports the development of a WordPress website. The developer suggests or introduces new ideas that are feasible with the respective business. Such developers also help in implementing and setting up accurate solutions, as well as integrating and modifying the things to near perfection. 

Apart from that, a skilled WordPress developer can also suggest and guide you in the best way to implement the best strategies that can meet your needs. Such as, customized coding, installing premium plugins, etc. based on your needs. 

To make an SEO friendly website, they can also guide to use relevant ready-made templates, customize UI and UX and guide designers in doing so. Overall, a good WordPress developer is one who understands when the product requires customization and when not; just make what is required, not too much or less. 

A clever WordPress developer can also suggest measures to minimize your expenses and without any custom coding. For instance, using the readymade premium plugins and code combination. If the developer is visionary and a good architect, then will definitely suggest the optimal ways to accomplish any business goals.

Advantages of Hiring A WordPress Developer

  • Less time in learning the intricate details of your WordPress development website.
  • The developer can actually add customized functionalities to your site, which is helpful in the event when you require specific features and choices. 
  • There are minimum chances that your site will look ‘cookie cutter’.
  • Your WP developer will realize how to capitalize on the platform, which means boosting your site’s performance, security, etc. 
  • You’ll have somebody to reach out for assistance with specialized technical issues, bug fixing, updations, and many more.

How to Hire A WordPress Developer?

While looking to hire a skilled WordPress developer, then it is important to understand that it is your responsibility to set the quality of developer and thoroughly search your candidate on various portals. If you fail to do so, then you will end up wasting your time and resources or might have to satisfy with a sub-par job or object. Thus, following these 4 steps thoroughly you can find the answer of how to hire a WordPress developer.

Step 1- Define your Requirements Accurately

Regardless of whether you are not building your site personally, you’ll require a clear idea of your requirements before you hire a WordPress developer. The more explicit details you can provide, the better the final product is going to be. 

You don’t have to begin arranging the format of your site, however you will need to define its purpose and content in a more broad manner. For example, consider:

  • What will be the objective of your site– to share data, build a community, make sales, and so forth.
  • The types and number of pages you would prefer.
  • Any specific features and functionality your site requires, like booking or order forms, social media integration, e-commerce facility, calendars, etc.

When you hire a WordPress developer, these are the initial data briefs you’ll need to convey to them. Thus, you’ll know you both are working on the same page about the direction your website requires.

hire a wordpress developer

Step 2- Know what you are looking for in a WordPress Developer

In case you’re aiming to hire a WordPress developer, you’ll need to realize how to evaluate applicants. It can be difficult, particularly when you have minimal technical specialization. However, you can still make an informed decision.

To make it possible, you’ll need to consider the below mentioned factors:

  • What are the charges of WordPress Developer? 

Specifically, be careful about those on the exceptionally low end of the scale, charging $5 to $15 each hour (or something like that). This probably demonstrates the lack of experience.

  • Do they have previous work Portfolios?

Everything you can manage while checking a potential recruit is to take a look at previous websites or products they worked upon. If possible, then visit the sites and invest a little time on them, test how easy or difficult it is to navigate the site, whether the key elements work appropriately or not, etc.

  • Can you get some References, Reviews, or Testimonials? 

Try to reach out to their colleagues or bosses they earlier worked for, and ask what their experience resembled.

  • What tools do they use?

A few designers can even develop a custom WordPress development theme, whereas others can effectively use page builder plugins like Elementor. There’s not actually a set in stone here, yet you’ll need to know precisely what the establishment of your site will be on the grounds that it will influence how you will implement changes in the future.

At last, it’s wise to connect and have a discussion with the strongest applicants prior to settling on a decision. Get some information about their experience, let them realize what you’re searching for, etc. This will disclose to you a couple of things – how fast the designer responds, how well they communicate, and how clearly they understand your needs.

Step 3- Inspect their Portfolio In-depth

Designers ought to provide a portfolio of their recently finished ventures. Here are only a couple of things you should be looking for:

  • Worked on Similar Projects to your Business

You need to identify that the designer is fit for delivering what you are requesting or to serve the purpose accurately for what you are hiring a WordPress developer.

  • Skill Level

While hard to pass judgment, in the event that you have a complex project that requires multiple functionality, it’s significant that the hired developer has the experience to build it. If their portfolio contains most of the simple sites with restricted functionality, they presumably don’t have the expertise to fulfil your project demands.

  • Types of Projects

Assuming you need a custom plugin, yet the developer just builds websites, or the other way around, they might not have the skills you need.

Step 4- Conduct Video Interview to Hire A WordPress Developer

As video meets interviews commonly start communication in the hiring process, use them to ask some fundamental queries about the job role and a candidate’s fit. Useful questions might include: 

  • For what reason do you feel you’re ideal for this position?
  • What pulled you to working with our organization?
  • What specialized WordPress development technical skills do you have?
  • Clarify how your schooling and qualifications will work well for you in this job role.

The Interview Questions to ask While Interviewing A WordPress Developer

In the wake of narrowing down your contender to a chosen handful. It’s an ideal opportunity to investigate each candidate in more depth.

To test potential skills of a WordPress developer while recruitment. Ask them a progression of questions that plunge deeper into what they guarantee they can do. Here are a few questions you might jump at the chance to pose:

  • What is your experience of customizing or writing WordPress development code?
  • Which WordPress plugin do you use frequently?
  • What is a custom theme?
  • What is your experience of making new themes in WordPress development?
  • How would you normally optimize a site for SEO?
  • What are your preferred communication strategies?

What are the Best Ability Tests to Hire a WordPress Developer? 

  • CSS: The CSS developer test checks applicant knowledge and skills in CSS techniques and concepts.
  • WordPress Developer: Evaluates applicants knowledge in the WordPress infrastructure along with coding abilities.
  • PHP (Coding) at Intermediate-Level Algorithms: The PHP test evaluates coding abilities of applicants with a short coding assignment.
  • SQL (Coding) at Intermediate-Level Querying: The SQL query running test checks candidates abilities in making a query on the database with medium-level complexity.
  • PHP (Coding)Entry-Level Algorithm: This PHP test evaluates the applicant’s ability to program a small algorithm and tests their basic programming skills.
  • PHP (Coding) Object-Oriented Programming: This PHP coding test estimates the applicant’s object-oriented programming abilities and skills to use  PHP’s specific functionalities.
  • Critical Thinking: The critical thinking test assesses an applicant’s ability to implement critical thinking skills to ensure problem’s solution.

How much does it Cost to Hire a WordPress Developer?

When aiming to hire a WordPress developer, the first question always arises is; What is the normal hourly rate or the annual salary of a freelancer or a full-time employee? Thus, on an average the yearly compensation of a skilled WordPress developer is $112,921. Whereas, most freelance developers charge between $60-$100 each hour.

Other than the yearly salary or hourly payment of both employees and freelancers, make certain to factor in the cash you need to spend. While, preparing and onboarding another WordPress developer. A full-time employee normally costs more. As you need to prepare them to find a place with your organization culture and locally available to them for your method of chipping away at projects. On the other hand, a freelancer will introduce their own process and commonly require less oversight and expenses.

Wrapping Up

Hiring a WordPress Developer can be like exploring a minefield the first occasion when you do it. Yet each time you work with another developer you will find the interaction process becomes simpler. There’s a ton to consider, from scope of project and contracts to onboard candidates and payments.

The WordPress developers introduce a host of benefits to a company, such as ongoing technical support and advanced feedback into the user experience and technical SEO issues. Hope, reading this blog helps you in answering your question of how to hire a WordPress developer.

So, if you also like to hire a specialized WordPress developer then EngineerBabu is the right destination for you. We understand business needs and dedicatedly work to deliver best services and quality business solutions. For more information and detail you can Contact Us, we are here to help you in the best possible way we can.

The post How To Hire A WordPress Developer? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

]]>
https://engineerbabu.com/blog/how-to-hire-a-wordpress-developer/feed/ 0
How DevOps is Transforming Agile Software Development? https://engineerbabu.com/blog/how-devops-is-transforming-agile-software-development/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-devops-is-transforming-agile-software-development https://engineerbabu.com/blog/how-devops-is-transforming-agile-software-development/#boombox_comments Fri, 19 Mar 2021 11:06:00 +0000 https://engineerbabu.com/blog/?p=19059 Agile and DevOps may sound like two different practices of software development. But in reality, they are force multipliers for each other and also work best in complementing each other for the maximum impact. The definition, ideas, and jargon may make them sound a bit different at times but a closer analysis of each will...

The post How DevOps is Transforming Agile Software Development? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

]]>
Agile and DevOps may sound like two different practices of software development. But in reality, they are force multipliers for each other and also work best in complementing each other for the maximum impact. The definition, ideas, and jargon may make them sound a bit different at times but a closer analysis of each will quickly reveal the common bloodline between the two. Together they maximize adaptability to change, deliver great results and minimize wasteful development practices. In this article, we will see how DevOps is transforming Agile software development.

In 2008, Patrick DuBois and Andrew Clay Schafer made this connection between Development and operation practices which were separate concepts at the time and later Patrick coined the term “DevOps”. DevOps brings speed to the Agile practices and Agile brings adaptability to change. Together they drive customer satisfaction, growth, and a great user experience.

Agile as a concept works at its best when we are dealing with small-size teams which can work in close proximity to each other. Scaling Agile to large-scale organizations has its own challenges which require certain additional development practices to be adapted for scaling the Agile culture to scale it. 

DevOps as a culture on the other hand is built for scale and has been field-tested for a while in and around that.

devops

As per the 14th State of the Agile report, a majority of the companies survey has already started to make a shift to the DevOps in an Agile software development team. A significant portion of the respondent also found the transformation to be very important and relevant.

What is Agile?

Changing requirements are a nemesis to any software project. The project team picks up the requirements, analyzes and designs the solution, implementation is halfway through and BOOM!… the requirements changed. Start all over again. 

Agile tries to address the problem of adaptability to changing requirements by not doing big plans and designs upfront but rather in small increments and short cycles of analysis, design, implementation, and testing to deliver value without overshooting the cost for adapting to changing scope. The teams are kept small in size and the iterations are kept small which makes calibration and changing fast and effortless. 

Agile Manifesto

The Agile Manifesto consists of 12 Agile principles put together by the stalwarts of software development. It tries to resolve some of the biting problems of the time. At its heart, the Agile manifesto is based on the following values:

  1. Prefer individuals and interactions between them over tools and processes 
  2. Working software should be preferred over documentation
  3. Collaboration with customer for better feedback should be preferred over contracts 
  4. Respond to change rather than follow a fixed plan

The 12 principles of Agile which were jotted down in the snowbird summit became the guidelines for the Agile software development paradigm. 

Agile Methods

Agile software development is an umbrella term that we use to designate a set of practices that gives us better adaptability to changing scope of the project. But within Agile, there are different schools of practices [ methods ] which has slightly different and often competing views of things

Kent Beck developed Xtreme Programming [ XP ] had a view somewhat in line with >  Requirements gathering isn’t a phase that produces a static document, but an activity producing detail, just before it is needed, throughout development.

Mike Cohn developed scrum which is more about the way we execute than anything else, scrum do not involve any big design or plan but rather happens in incremental short, and well-defined steps 

Mary and Tom Poppendieck are attributed to the development of Lean revolves around the idea of reducing wasteful products or by-products from the development process. This should eventually lead up to a more efficient development process. 

What is DevOps?

Historically the development, operations, quality, and security teams have worked in silos and this needs to change for faster adaptability to change and faster feedback. This has been the driving force behind DevOps which is a set of practices that ties the independent sets of executions into a continuous flow of steps which allows for better change management for the project and also faster feedback. The loop symbolized the continuous nature of the development process. 

In an interview published by JAVA magazine in 2015, Patrick DeBois mentioned that before DevOps came into existence it was difficult to have an overview or a complete picture of what is actually happening within the development and the deployment process. Debugging, monitoring and profiling used to be a lot harder to execute. Due to the lack of insight into the overall process of building the system and deployment, it was hard for the engineering and the operations team to resolve the issues early on. This made Patrick believe that there has to be a way to combine the two separate disciples together and make things better for everyone. This is when Patrick DeBois coined the word ‘DevOps’.

Continuous improvement is the foundation stone for building good products and there is nothing like prompt and early feedback, this is exactly what DevOps brings to the table.

devops

DevOps Culture

DevOps is not just a set of practices or tools but rather has a cultural tone to it. It is the way people in the organizations think or collaborate and the way organizations like to approach their solutions engineering process. 

Collaboration is at the heart of DevOps, different teams, practices, and processes come together. As a result, a merger of process, priorities, expertise, and corners is typical in this scenario. They work together for the planning, execution, and feedback from the issues. It introduces a different dimension to the problem-solving ability of the team and the organization as a whole. 

DevOps teams tend to shorten the release cadence and the feedback cycle. This helps in adapting to change and catering to issues much faster. In the pre-DevOps era, Risk Management was a complex process because project teams uncovered challenges and issues in the process very late. This changed with the DevOps culture which works on the fundamentals of an incremental process. 

Benefits of the DevOps Culture

Continuous learning and innovation are two of the most critical outcomes of the DevOps culture. The feedback cycle also leads to a growth mindset at an organizational scale. 

Better governance, security, compliance, and innovation are the cornerstones of a thriving DevOps culture. Accountability, quality, and performance are some of the outcomes which have obvious benefits to the overall success of the project. DevOps process results in faster development, better feedback to build mature products, and elevated customer satisfaction. 

Finally, it also has a positive business impact due to: 

  • Faster time to market because last-minute surprises are minimized and less rework
  • Adaptability to market and competition 
  • Reduced recovery time

DevOps Practices 

It is not just enough to build the DevOps culture in the organization. However, is also the practices that need to be in place and baked into the development lifecycle of the product. 

1. Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery [CI/CD] 

The idea of continuous integration and continuous delivery is arguably the most prominent pillars of the DevOps practices. The idea of continuous integration revolves around the concept of automating the workflow of development to delivery from code check-in to production or staging. This brings down the cost of the change and also quick feedback to minimize the last-minute reworks. This also brings down the risk and makes updates pretty seamless. 

2. Version Control 

The idea of version control helps to maintain revisions and versions of the work artifacts. This makes managing rollbacks, merges, and conflicts like a breeze. The version control is possibly the most prominent collaboration tool that is currently in the state of practice. As a result, dividing the work while connected by distinct projects becomes easy. 

3. Agile Software Development 

DevOps and Agile go hand in hand to deal with today’s fast paces software development. Small upfront design, short iterative steps, and constant feedback allows for easy integration of updates and changes in requirements. Makes learning and adapting to change easy. In fact, DevOps culture and practices are the major support systems for the Agile development team.

4. Monitoring

Software in today’s world is a living and breathing system. It is alive. Monitoring tools and techniques allows for logging, analysis, profiling, and visualizing the entire software, databases and data flow for the entire end-to-end workflow. DevOps allows us to generate meaningful and actionable insights along with alerts in a real-time fashion. 

5. Security 

Security is an integral part of the DevOps culture and practice. It is almost impossible to add security as an ad hoc increment to the existing system. Hence, we need to start from day one. So, security has a major impact on the analysis, design, implementation, and testing of any modern system. It needs special handling and checking at many places. DevOps is the perfect candidate to make policy enforcements automated and error-free. 

6. Infrastructure Management 

The severs, routers, domain name servers, load balancers need to be managed, provisioned, and monitored to keep the infrastructure in place. For the software to do its job and also reduce the risk in deploying new features and improvements. We use configuration management tools to monitor and track infrastructure state and avoid drifts before it turns into a disaster. 

Conclusion

Agile and DevOps belong together as partners. It bring about the cultural change which has taken the software industry by storm. Once organizations understand the core values, principles, and practices then they can leverage the full potential of an effective Agile DevOps integration in combination.

EngineerBabu is an expert team of DevOps in following Agile Software Development model. If you are having and business idea or planning to take your business online. You can contact us and share your ideas with us. Our expert team of developers are here to assist you and take your business idea live.

The post How DevOps is Transforming Agile Software Development? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

]]>
https://engineerbabu.com/blog/how-devops-is-transforming-agile-software-development/feed/ 0
Staff Augmentation for Tech Startups: 7 Key Benefits https://engineerbabu.com/blog/staff-augmentation-for-tech-startups-7-key-benefits/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=staff-augmentation-for-tech-startups-7-key-benefits https://engineerbabu.com/blog/staff-augmentation-for-tech-startups-7-key-benefits/#boombox_comments Thu, 04 Mar 2021 10:23:44 +0000 https://engineerbabu.com/blog/?p=19035 Slack, a popular team collaboration tool. It uses an external agency to design their final product based on the initial prototype. The entire design of the product, logo, website, and app was created within six weeks. Alibaba outsourced its initial development to a US-based software development company. Groove’s founder Alex Turnbull outsourced the development of...

The post Staff Augmentation for Tech Startups: 7 Key Benefits appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

]]>
Slack, a popular team collaboration tool. It uses an external agency to design their final product based on the initial prototype. The entire design of the product, logo, website, and app was created within six weeks. Alibaba outsourced its initial development to a US-based software development company. Groove’s founder Alex Turnbull outsourced the development of the SaaS enterprise which created the final product within four months. The Staff Augmentation model has laid the foundation of many successful startups and the trend is growing. A Statista report suggests the IT Staff Augmentation market size grew to $132.9 billion in 2020.

A great product idea on its own is not enough for building a successful start-up. Cost optimization, a faster go-to-market strategy, and innovation are three additional pillars that support the foundation of a start-up. Startups have to be lean and agile in all aspects of their functioning to ensure they become profitable faster. Staff Augmentation can help them achieve this goal. Especially when it comes to tech startups, Staff Augmentation model can solve many of the early business challenges – cost optimization, infrastructural challenges, time, the faster launch of the product, and more. 

In this article, we will talk about why tech startups should choose the Staff Augmentation model over hiring a permanent resource pool and its key benefits.

Staff Augmentation for Tech Startups

Staff Augmentation is an outsourcing model where enterprises can hire resources from a Staff Augmentation partner like Supersourcing or EngineerBabu to strengthen their existing team. However, the model can help Startups in various scenarios like:

  • When a start-up is trying to optimize costs.
  • New product launch.
  • Adding a helping hand to the existing team to meet deliverables.
  • Filling skills gap, etc.

According to a Statista report, various reasons why enterprises choose Staff Augmentation vary from bridging the skill gaps, cost savings to innovation, and more.

Staff Augmentation for tech startups

As the Staff Augmentation market grows, the various types of Staff Augmentation enterprises that have emerged in the market. Some of these are:

1. Traditional Staffing Companies: Traditional staffing companies for temporary or short-term resources.

2. Large Scale Staffing Solution Providers: These are bigger enterprises hoisting large-scale staffing services.

3. Specialized Skills Staffing Companies: These companies outsource resources for some specialized skill sets.

4. Gig platforms: A marketplace for hiring talent.

5. On-demand Talent Platforms: Websites/online platforms that can help enterprises hire talent for specialized skills.

It is important for tech startups to choose the model that best suits their business requirements and budgets. Factors that should be considered while choosing a model can be- project length, security or NDA related to the project, timelines, etc.

Benefits of Choosing a Staff Augmentation Model

There are various challenges that a tech startup faces: from infrastructural set-up to financial crunch, unavailability of skilled resources, and more. Staff Augmentation can be a one-stop solution for all these challenges. In fact, the Staff Augmentation model is seen as a viable and profitable sector even by industry mammoths like Google. Perhaps why Google acquired a Staff Augmentation platform of Data Scientists called Kaggle in the year 2017. It results into a move that helped Google gain access to a huge community of talented data scientists. 

Here’s how Tech Startups can benefit from Staff Augmentation:

1. Think Fast and innovate faster

While ideas are in plenty in a startup world, enterprises are often stretched for resources and finances Staff Augmentation can help them bring the most innovative ideas to life faster and within budgets.

2. Short Recruitment Process

Technology is evolving at a faster pace, and for tech startups to say ahead of the competition, innovating faster is critical. As a result, costs and time both are critical assets. In this scenario, spending that time on a recruitment cycle can result in losing valuable time. Therefore, a staff augmentation partner can help shorten this recruitment cycle by taking care of the entire recruitment process – from finding the right tech-talent to onboarding them.

3. Flexible and Cost-effective Teams

Startups have to be agile and flexible. A Staff Augmentation partner can help them maintain a flexible team structure that can be scaled-up and down based on the project requirements and save costs. Hence, hiring a developer with a specific skill-set can prove to be costlier on a long-term basis. For example, hiring a Python Developer can cost  $113,889 and about $120,511 and a React.JS Developer can cost $120 000. Therefore, a Staff Augmentation model tech-startups can hire resources on their requirement and for a short-term period. It ultimately minimizes expenses. 

4. Specialized Skills

In the tech world, innovation is an important factor for success. Thus, enterprises will have to be on top of emerging technologies like – Data Science, AI, Blockchain, and more. The technology landscape is evolving and finding skilled resources with the expertise in technologies as per project requirements can be challenging and time-consuming. According to a recent KPMG report, there is a grave shortage of resources with specialized skill-sets like data analysts, AI professionals, and Cybersecurity experts. This shortage is expanding continuously. While big tech companies can train their workforce, this is not a feasible option in the startup world. In this scenario, the Staff Augmentation partner can help them hire resources with specialized skill sets when required.

5. Faster Go-To-Market

A Staff Augmentation partner can help Tech Startups execute their product idea at a faster rate since the time required to find talent, onboarding them, waiting period for a resource to join the team, etc. is saved. Having access to a ready talent pool with required skill sets enables startups to finish the MVP’s design and development and launch it faster in the markets. The readily available resource pool also makes it easier for startups to iterate the product features basis feedback from the users. Finally, with a  faster go-to-market strategy, startups can stay ahead of the competition and get the innovators’ advantage.

6. Round-the-Clock Resources

A Staff Augmentation partner can help in allocating resources based on their time zone flexibility. For a SaaS company, it is even more beneficial since access to a talent pool that can support various customers depending on their time zones will help them retain customers. Besides, it also helps them hire a talent pool basis requirement. For e.g. the design team can be hired for the initial stages of the project. Similarly, a QA team can be hired for a required duration after the development of the projects. The development team can be scaled up or down depending on the stage of the product development. This on-demand flexibility helps tech-startups optimize costs to a large extent. Additionally, the flexibility of time and available resources can deliver high operational efficiency since the overheads of infrastructure, maintenance of permanent staff, etc. are cut back.

7. Greater control over the project

Unlike traditional outsourcing of projects with a Staff Augmentation model, the project’s full control remains with the enterprise. The Staff Augmentation team works as an extended team and not a siloed external unit, that gives enterprises to manage the project. Having a stronghold on all operations, and shaping the requirements as per their needs.

In Conclusion:

The technological advances and opportunities available in today’s business world are conducive to startups growth and success. However, startups will have to work smartly to create cost-effective and efficient processes that can help them become profitable and scale faster. Adopting a Staff Augmentation model can easily take care of the hiring process, resource allocation & management, etc. Thus, helping entrepreneurs to focus on innovation and a quick product launch. The gig-economy is terms as new normal and continuous learners are preferred among all in this Staff Augmentation world. The Staff Augmentation model can bridge the gap between the right resources and enterprises, helping them create a cost-effective and efficient process.

The post Staff Augmentation for Tech Startups: 7 Key Benefits appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

]]>
https://engineerbabu.com/blog/staff-augmentation-for-tech-startups-7-key-benefits/feed/ 0
How to build a Knowledge-Sharing platform – Find a Mentor https://engineerbabu.com/blog/app-to-find-a-mentor-online/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=app-to-find-a-mentor-online https://engineerbabu.com/blog/app-to-find-a-mentor-online/#boombox_comments Mon, 06 Apr 2020 14:37:46 +0000 https://engineerbabu.com/blog/?p=17533 ‘Find a mentor’ Project Objective The objective of the project  ‘Find a mentor’ is to create a platform for online learning and knowledge sharing. ‘Find a mentor’ project will create a bridge between the domain experts and people who want to learn a new skill or gain some new knowledge. The sole purpose of ‘Find...

The post How to build a Knowledge-Sharing platform – Find a Mentor appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

]]>
‘Find a mentor’ Project Objective

The objective of the project  ‘Find a mentor’ is to create a platform for online learning and knowledge sharing. ‘Find a mentor’ project will create a bridge between the domain experts and people who want to learn a new skill or gain some new knowledge. The sole purpose of ‘Find a mentor’ is the ability to facilitate knowledge sharing from an experienced professional mentor to the various industry professionals.

Online mentors will be able to post text messages, images, videos and audios on ‘Find a mentor’ platform and professionals or learners will be able to react to these posts. Professionals would have to follow the online mentor’s account in order to connect with him, see his posts and ask him questions to have a doubt free online learning. Mentors can also block malicious followers. Individual profiles will be maintained for mentors and the professionals on the ‘Find a mentor’ platform. It will contain all their basic details, such as name, contact details, education, interests and their professional details such as the current workplace, work experience, skills, etc.

‘Find a mentor’ Project Vision

The vision for ‘find a mentor’ is to create a professional platform for online learning connecting mentors and professionals. This platform will help thousands of young professionals to seek formal expert guidance from skillful professional mentors. Our solution to this problem will be to make this platform such that it will provide the best user experience.

Recommended Reading: Mentrio – A community to find the right Mentor

Primary users for the platform will be the mentors and the professionals. A mentor’s main role will be to share his knowledge by his mentorship program in the form of posts, discussions and answering the questions asked by the learners. A professional’s main role will be to gain knowledge, initiate discussions and ask questions. To initiate online learning, both the online mentor and the learning professional need a professional environment that is provided on the ‘Find a mentor’ platform.

What makes ‘Find a mentor’ different from other platforms?

Despite having one knowledge of one domain, people are always eager to learn new things and for this, they need a professional mentor who can guide them and share their experience in their respective industries. A mentorship program can be a great way to share knowledge and help someone become successful in their personal or professional life. But many professional mentors are often too busy to commit to regular meetings, or they have a hard time connecting with people seeking help. On ‘Find a mentor’ platform, prospective mentors and mentees can be matched, based on similar interests, location, and availability.

At all stages of one’s career, professional mentors play an important role. Unfortunately, for many people, finding a great mentor remains a challenge.

For finding a mentor, people usually visit different portals and most of them are paid, in the market, there are 100s of portals but mentees usually go through a bad experience with the quality of mentorship programs offered on them. So people are usually afraid to use these portals because no one wants to spend their hard-earned money on an online learning program which is not fruitful for them. One can’t judge the program or the mentor on the basis of review because some platforms provide fake reviews and ratings to attract the user.

Another biggest problem is the availability of a mentor, because being an employee of any industry, they always face trouble finding the right mentors for business due to lack of time and resources. On this platform, we provide an equal facility to both user experts(mentor) and mentee(professional) to explore the things that we are offering in our platform. Mentors can organize live conferencing for sharing the industry knowledge and people who are following him/her can watch live video and add the comment. Mentees can ask the question from their preferred mentor and send them a reminder.

In every industry, there are around four types of people:

First, the type of people who just started their career and are in an early stage of a professional career and require mentors for business.

Second, the type of people who have already started their career and reached a mid-level after working 5 to 6 years in any industry, at this time, they want to learn new things in order to take the company to the next level and can teach them their junior. Learning from an experienced professional mentor from the same industry is always better than learning by oneself.

Often people don’t have time after office hours. They have to take care of family and spend quality time with them. People rarely get time to learn new things. So the idea of ‘Find a mentor’ project is basically to connect professionals to experts for learning and exploring new things that are happening in the industry.

Third, the type of people who have the knowledge of their respective industry may become the mentor to professionals. Mentors can reply to the question which was being asked by their mentee, on the platform we connect the mentor and mentee so that mentee can ask the question which he may have and after a certain time mentee can poke them in order to send them a reminder.

Fourth, the type of people who can play a dual role, i.e;  being registered as an expert, can switch the profile as professional and can follow other experts.

USP of ‘Find a mentor’

  1. Professionals are directly able to interact with the mentors and ask them questions.
  2. A professional can ask a maximum of 2 questions to a particular mentor so that the mentor would not be stuck on one person only and can interact with other professionals as well.
  3. Mentors may sometimes forget to answer the questions asked by the professionals due to their busy and hectic lives. Thus, the latter can “Poke” the former to remind them about answering their asked questions.
  4. Poking can be done only 2 times to maintain professionalism and to prevent mentors from getting annoyed.
  5. Mentors can stream videos live in their posts using YouTube.
  6. Mentors can host a Webinar in their posts using YouTube.
  7. A person can have both a Mentor and a Professional account for the same Email-ID/Phone no.
  8. Privacy of the Mentor is maintained as their posts and activities can only be seen by the people who follow them(Professional can follow a Mentor only if the Mentor approves).

User Persona for ‘Find a mentor’

User Persona: Mentor

Demographics
  • Age: 25+
  • Employed
  • Male/Female
Background Highly experienced in any of the skills
Needs An environment where various Industry specialists can use their knowledge to help various professionals by connecting and interacting with them and clearing their doubts.
Goals To guide professionals and to make them learn.
Frustrations
  1. Annoying and totally out-of-the-topic questions
  2. Personal questions
Perceptions Mentors generally like to share their knowledge about any field or skill and help people, like students, freshers or anyone, in their free time. This platform will basically help them to do so.
Motivation
  1. Easy to use the platform to connect with professionals
  2. Smooth interactions
  3. Reducing spams (max 3 question feature)

 

User Persona: Professional

Demographics Male/Female
Background
  1. Has learned or wants to learn a new skill
  2. Wants to have more knowledge about the skill that he/she already has and other things related to those fields
Needs An environment where various Professionals can enrich their knowledge, ask their doubts and connect with industry or domain specialists.
Goals To learn a skill or to gain knowledge about any field of interest
Frustrations
  1. No or late responses from the Mentor’s end
  2. No acceptance of the follow request
Perceptions Professionals eagerly seek platforms like this one where they can get a good level of knowledge and expertise and whenever they find such a platform, they are always willing to try it out.
Motivation
  1. Easy to use the platform to connect with Mentors
  2. Smooth interactions
  3. A platform for professional needs

Prototype and Usability Test

I created high fidelity wireframes, altogether 20 screens for the usability test. Below are some samples.

Expert web flow to find a mentor

Expert web flow to find a mentor

Feature List

  1. Onboarding
    1. Established Audience (EA)
      1. Social Sign up/Sign in
      2. Password-based Sign up/Sign in
    2. Audience (A)
      1. Social Signup/Sign in
      2. Password-based Signup/Sign in
    3. Posts
      1. Share
      2. Like
      3. Unlike
      4. Comment
      5. Like and Dislike over comments
      6. Comment over comment
      7. Create a new post
    4. Resources in posts
      1. Images
      2. Text-based posts
      3.  Events
        1. Date
        2. Time
        3. Location
        4. Name
      4. Webinars using youtube
      5. Live video streaming using youtube
      6. Uploaded videos – preferably from youtube
    5. Follow and Linking
      1. Followers
      2. Privacy of posts and resources
    6. Payment and Subscription ( Optional, if you don’t want in current phase)
      1. Unlock premium content
      2. Payment for content
    7. Question & Answer Section
      1. 3 question from each Audience
    8. Poke EA
      1. only 2 times max
    9. Personal Profile
      1.  EA
        1. Name
        2. Image
        3. Follow button
        4. No. of followers
        5. Education
        6. Short Introduction
        7. Current Workplace
        8. Work experience
        9. Skills
        10. Interests
        11. Contact details
          1. Email ID
          2. Phone no.
      2. A
        1. Name
        2. Image
        3. Following
        4. Education
        5. Short Introduction
        6. Current Workplace
        7. Work experience
        8. Skills
        9. Interests
        10. Contact details
          1. Email ID
          2. Phone no.
    10. Notifications
      1.  EA
        1. New followers
        2. New like on post
        3. New comment on the post
        4. New share on the post
        5. Questions by audience
      2.  A
        1. Answers on asked questions
        2. Reply on comment

Features of an App to find professional mentors

If you are also planning to start a similar project, we would be happy to work on that too. . Our team at EngineerBabu is experienced in delivering excellent apps and software. We have been developing similar apps and our mobile app developers can help you build the same. Since we have been delivering IT solutions to a wide range of clients, we know the errors that come in the way and how to solve them. If you have any kind of doubt then we are there for your help. Feel free to reach out to us even if you are in the ideational stage. To read more blogs and success stories, visit our website.

The post How to build a Knowledge-Sharing platform – Find a Mentor appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

]]>
https://engineerbabu.com/blog/app-to-find-a-mentor-online/feed/ 0