Freshcode’s Approach to Hiring and Retaining Clojure Developers

Drawing from our decade-plus experience at Freshcode, where we've built one of the largest Clojure teams in Europe, we're here to share our battle-tested strategies. Whether you want to expand your Clojure team or nurture your existing talent, our methodologies offer practical insights to help you succeed.

Ready to transform your approach to Clojure talent acquisition and retention? Let's dive in.

Hiring Clojure experts

Expand your recruitment strategy

The landscape of Clojure development is competitive. Thinking outside the box regarding recruitment can yield impressive results. Our experience has shown that limiting your search to developers with existing Clojure expertise can severely restrict your expertise pool.

Clojure is a relatively small community, and we often find ourselves cycling through the same candidates. That's why we've expanded our search criteria to include developers with strong fundamentals in other languages.

Semen Hetman

Head of Recruitment at Freshcode

This approach allows you to tap into a much larger pool of talented developers who have the potential to excel in Clojure. Look for candidates with:

Strong problem-solving skills

Experience in functional programming concepts

A demonstrated ability to learn new languages quickly

A passion for clean, efficient code

Freshcode Tip

One of our most successful strategies has been transitioning skilled JavaScript developers to Clojure. We've developed a unique program for training strong JS developers to Clojure, which has become a significant strength of our recruitment process.

This approach offers several advantages:

There are far more JavaScript developers than Clojurists, so you access a larger expertise pool.

Many concepts in modern JavaScript (especially in functional programming) translate well to Clojure. This way, you embrace skill transferability.

To implement this strategy:

Develop a structured training program for JS to Clojure transition.

Highlight Clojure benefits and provide mentoring during the transition.

Offer projects leveraging both JS and Clojure skills.

This approach solves our hiring needs and offers exciting growth opportunities for JavaScript developers looking to expand their skill sets. By thinking creatively about your hiring pool and investing in the proper training and support, you can significantly expand your access to Clojure talent while providing valuable career development opportunities for developers.

Keep the funnel warm

Active engagement with the Clojure community is crucial for building a strong candidate pipeline. It helps you stay connected with potential hires and establishes your company as a respected player in the Clojure ecosystem. Building and maintaining relationships with potential candidates, even when you're not actively hiring, is a crucial strategy for successful Clojure recruitment.

Freshcode Tip

We constantly keep in touch with relevant people, maintaining a warm pipeline. This allows us to conduct interviews in February when we don't have vacancies but potentially hire within 2-3 days in April when a position opens up, and we already have a pool of waiting candidates.

To maintain these warm relationships:

Provide comprehensive feedback after interviews.

We're very polite with Clojure developers, providing detailed feedback and never engaging in conflicts. This approach allows us to maintain positive relationships even if we don't hire immediately.

Keep communication lines open.

Regularly check in with promising candidates, share company updates, or discuss industry trends.

Offer value beyond job opportunities.

Share interesting Clojure resources, invite them to company events, or offer mentorship.

Be transparent about future opportunities.

Keep potential candidates informed about possible openings or projects.

You create a robust talent pipeline by engaging actively with the Clojure community and maintaining warm relationships with potential candidates. This approach makes hiring easier when positions open up and contributes to your company's reputation in the Clojure ecosystem. 

Refine the interview process

A well-designed interview process is crucial for identifying the best Clojure developers. Our approach focuses on practical, real-world assessments rather than theoretical knowledge alone. Candidates often leave our interviews with new knowledge. We maintain contact with them, fostering a friendly, mutually beneficial exchange.

Having conducted over 200 interviews in the past 3-4 years,  we don't rely on candidates' stories about their experience. Instead, we focus on practical tests that demonstrate their skills in action.

Key components of our practical assessments include:

Live coding exercises

Present candidates with real-world problems to solve in real-time.

Observe their problem-solving approach, coding style, and thought process.

Assess their ability to explain their code and decisions.

Code reviews

Provide candidates with existing code samples to review.

Evaluate their ability to identify issues, suggest improvements, and explain their reasoning. This helps assess both technical knowledge and communication skills.

These practical assessments give us a clearer picture of a candidate's capabilities than traditional question-and-answer sessions. We incorporate role-playing exercises into our interview process to assess how candidates perform in actual work situations.

Additional interview components:

Developer workflow observation. We pay attention to how candidates use their tools - IDEs, REPLs, etc. This gives us insight into their day-to-day working style.

Comprehensive interviewer training. We have a dedicated course for preparing Clojure interviewers. This ensures consistency and effectiveness across all interviews.

By focusing on practical assessments and real-world scenarios, we can evaluate a candidate's current Clojure skills and their potential for growth, problem-solving abilities, and fit within our team culture.

Retaining and nurturing Clojure devs

Provide comprehensive onboarding

Remember, the goal of onboarding is not just to teach technical skills but to fully integrate new hires into your team culture and workflows. A well-structured onboarding program demonstrates your commitment to the developer's success and sets the foundation for a long, productive tenure with your company.

Freshcode Tip

OWe've developed a proactive onboarding program that significantly reduces the time it takes for new hires to reach full productivity. We create a proactive onboarding program. We don't hope the client will handle it, but we actively develop our onboarding plan.

Critical components of an effective Clojure onboarding program:

Clojure-specific technical orientation

Introduce your company's Clojure coding standards and best practices.

Provide access to internal Clojure libraries, tools, and resources.

Project-specific training

Offer detailed walkthroughs of the projects the new hire will be working on.

Explain the business context and technical architecture of these projects.

Mentorship pairing

Assign an experienced Clojure developer as a mentor to each new hire.

Schedule regular check-ins between the mentor and mentee.

Incremental responsibility

Start with smaller, well-defined tasks and gradually increase the complexity.

This approach builds confidence and allows for early wins.

Freshcode Tip

Our onboarding program has reduced the time to full productivity from 3 months to 1 month. This rapid ramp-up is crucial for the developer's confidence and our project timelines.

Rotate developers through diverse projects

We maintain curiosity in our Clojure developers by rotating them through startups, research projects, and enterprise clients. This approach not only keeps them engaged but also enhances their qualifications. While we have enterprise clients, we also make sure our developers get to work on more dynamic, startup-like projects. This balance keeps their skills sharp and adaptable.

Key strategies:

Project diversity

Expose developers to a mix of project types: greenfield startups, research initiatives, and established enterprise systems.

This variety helps prevent burnout and broadens skill sets.

Regular rotation schedule

Implement a structured rotation system, quarterly or bi-annually.

Allow developers to express preferences while ensuring everyone gets diverse experiences.

Cross-functional teams

Form teams with mixed expertise levels and complementary skills. This will promote knowledge sharing and expose developers to different perspectives.

Foster expertise in related technologies

We have strong expertise in React and JS, which complements our Clojure teams. This allows us to switch easily between React/JS and ClojureScript projects.

Approaches to fostering complementary skills:

Cross-training programs

Offer structured training in related technologies like JavaScript, React, and other relevant tools.

Encourage Clojure developers to become proficient in ClojureScript.

Regular rotation schedule

Give developers opportunities to work on projects' back-end (Clojure) and front-end (ClojureScript) aspects.

Pair developers with mentors who have solid experience in full-stack.

Encourage knowledge sharing between back-end and front-end specialists.

Technology-agnostic problem-solving

Encourage developers to approach problems from multiple technological perspectives. This broadens their thinking and makes them more versatile.

Invest in your team's soft skills

We've developed a course for 'upskilling' candidates' soft skills. It's a systematic approach to help candidates work effectively with clients, focusing on self-presentation and articulating their experience.

Role-playing scenarios might include:

Client interactions

Simulate a client meeting where the candidate needs to explain a technical concept or propose a solution.

Assess communication skills, ability to translate technical information, and problem-solving under pressure.

Team collaborations

Create a scenario where the candidate needs to work with a hypothetical team member to solve a problem.

Evaluate teamwork, leadership potential, and ability to give and receive feedback.

Project planning

Present a mock project and ask the candidate to outline their approach.

Assess project management skills, foresight, and ability to balance technical and business considerations.

These exercises help candidates reveal themselves more fully. We often find that candidates leave our interviews having gained new knowledge, which helps maintain a positive relationship even if we don't proceed with hiring.

Takeaway

The path to building and maintaining a stellar Clojure team is multifaceted. It requires creativity in recruitment, warmth in relationship-building, rigor in the interview process, and a commitment to continuous growth and engagement. By implementing these strategies, you're not just filling positions but cultivating a thriving Clojure ecosystem within your organization.

Ready to elevate your Clojure team? By partnering with Freshcode, you gain access to:

Complex behaviors from simpler functions, enhancing code clarity and maintainability

Over a decade of experience in Clojure development

Proven strategies for legacy system modernization

A pool of seasoned Clojurists ready to tackle your challenges

Expertise in training and upskilling your existing team

Do you still have questions about building your dream Clojure team? We're here to help. Contact our experts at Freshcode for a personalized consultation on attracting, hiring, and retaining top Clojure developers in your unique business context.