Building a robust Drupal development project that supports your business objectives can be challenging and time-consuming.
But with the right Drupal partner that has the experience and expertise needed to help you build a website that will meet all of your needs, you will find this process a lot easier.
This article talks about the competitive advantages of hiring Drupal developers and how you can find the best fit that meets your Drupal project needs.
The benefits of hiring Drupal developers
Hiring a Drupal developer is an investment in your company's success as it provides plenty of competitive benefits that set you apart from the competition. These advantages include:
- Building highly-personalized Drupal projects that boost your brand awareness and increase sales.
- Designing and developing custom Drupal features and functionalities that suit your project requirements.
- Dedicated support for your Drupal project throughout its lifecycle from content migration and system integration to API design and web accessibility.
- Having access to ongoing updates and continuous maintenance and support.
- Reduced costs and increased ROI by having a dedicated team working on your project.
What are some of the challenges of hiring Drupal developers?
When hiring Drupal developers, there are several challenges that organizations may encounter. Here are some common challenges associated with hiring Drupal developers:
- Drupal-specific knowledge. Drupal is a complex content management system with its own specific architecture, concepts, and terminology. Finding candidates with in-depth Drupal expertise can be challenging, as it requires knowledge of Drupal's module system, theming, configuration management, and custom module development.
- Technical skills. Apart from Drupal-specific knowledge, Drupal developers should have a strong foundation in web development technologies such as PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and databases. Assessing candidates' technical skills and ensuring they are up to date with the latest Drupal version can be a challenge.
- Experience and expertise. Drupal development experience is valuable when hiring developers. However, experienced Drupal developers are often in high demand, making it competitive to attract and retain top talent. Finding developers with a proven track record of successful Drupal projects can be a challenge, especially for organizations that require specific domain expertise.
- Community involvement. The Drupal community is active and vibrant, and participation in the community can indicate a developer's commitment to learning and staying up to date with Drupal best practices. Evaluating candidates' involvement in the Drupal community and their contributions is many times a real challenge.
- Scalability and performance. Drupal websites can vary greatly in terms of size and complexity. Hiring developers who understand how to build scalable and performant Drupal applications is essential, as performance issues can arise when handling large amounts of content or high traffic volumes. Assessing candidates' ability to optimize Drupal websites and troubleshoot performance problems can be challenging during the hiring process.
- Communication and collaboration. Drupal developers often work in teams, collaborating with designers, front-end developers, project managers, and stakeholders. Finding candidates with strong communication and collaboration skills, who can effectively work in an agile environment and contribute to project success, is not always easy.
To address these challenges, organizations can adopt strategies such as conducting thorough technical assessments, reviewing candidates' portfolios and past projects, leveraging Drupal community resources, seeking recommendations from trusted sources, and providing opportunities for continuous learning and skill development.
How to spot the right Drupal partner for your business requirements
There are several things you should consider before hiring a Drupal developer. Here are some tips to help you identify the right Drupal developer for your project:
- Do your research first and gain a good understanding of what a Drupal developer is and what are their responsibilities.
A Drupal developer has plenty of duties like conducting research and installing Drupal modules that best fit your needs, extending existing modules so their functionality increases, managing how your website looks and works for high-quality user experiences, migrating existing websites and content, architecting Drupal projects and web infrastructures, etc.
Also, a Drupal developer can have three main roles that you should pay attention to:
- Drupal Front-End Developer. A front-end developer is responsible for designing and building the interface of your site using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, Foundation or any other framework. This includes elements such as buttons, forms, navigation menus, or tables and also includes how your page looks.
- Drupal Back-End Developer. A back-end developer is responsible for programming the logic behind your site's functions and processes. This includes writing code that handles database queries, creates pages, manages users, and more.
- Drupal Theme Developer. A theme developer is responsible for styling the look and feel of the entire website including the layout, colors, fonts, images, and anything else that makes up the overall appearance. They will work with the front-end developer to ensure that everything on the site matches and flows well together.
2. Identify and examine your project needs.
Now that you know in more detail what a Drupal developer does, it's time to understand your project needs and what you require from a developer's services. Key questions to ask at this stage are:
- Do you need a back-end expert or a full-stack developer?
- Do you only need Drupal maintenance?
- Do you need a whole new enterprise-grade Drupal solution?
- Would you like to hire a freelance developer or a contract-to-hire?
- Do you just have a rough idea of what you’d like him/them to develop?
- What type of experience do you want them to have?
- How much time would you be willing to spend working with them?
- How many hours per week would you be able to dedicate to the project?
3. Know where to look for talented Drupal developers.
Top channels to consider for passive searches:
- job portals like LinkedIn, Monster, Glassdoor, Indeed
- online Drupal (or PHP)
- communities freelance platforms like Upwork, Toptal, Scalable Path
Top channels for your active searches:
- social media Drupal groups
- local IT communities
- LinkedIn (when you start analyzing particular profiles on LinkedIn your passive search becomes active) Drupal.org (select the top Drupal profiles there and start evaluating them against your own requirements) developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow
4. Ask the right questions.
Among the most important questions to ask potential Drupal partners are:
- How long have you been working with Drupal development solutions?
- What Drupal experience do you have?
- Are you familiar with my business model?
- Can you provide references?
- What Drupal skills do you possess?
- What Drupal technologies do you use?
5. Evaluate your potential Drupal partner carefully.
Essential things to consider are:
- How experienced they are in working with different Drupal versions
- What their technical expertise is / How skilled they are at Drupal module development
- Their GitHub Profile (how much time they spent on different projects, samples of their written code, details on their contributions)
- Their involvement with the Drupal community
- What past clients say about working with them
Optasy's team of experienced Drupal developers is here to help you
We are a development company and we are ready to leverage and to "fuel" your project with all that Drupal expertise that we've been gaining as a Drupal firm during these +10 years: whether it's custom module development, Drupal migration, AI implementation, or any type of new feature integration with Drupal that you need us to do.
We're web developers, but with a mobile-first approach to our website development projects, in fact: we commit to helping you deliver the message to your users in an intuitive, effective, and nonetheless appealing way, on all devices.
We'll be in for the long run: our Drupal development services include 24/7/365 support & ongoing maintenance, which means much more than just rolling out patches and updates; we'll ensure that your OPTASY solution (be it Drupal, Laravel, WordPress, Magento, React or Angular-based) keeps meeting your goals, that it continues to remain relevant in the context of future technology changes.
From structure planning, to Drupal website development, all the way to maintenance and long-term support, we've got your back; stay assured: full-cycle projects are our specialty as a Drupal 8 agency.
As a development company in Toronto we have the experience and the expertise to handle your most specific requirements:
- back-end development: we design and develop the custom features and functionalities that suit your project requirements
- front-end development: from custom themes to user-friendly Uis, to user experience design, to designing responsive layouts
- content migration
- system integration
- API design and development
- web accessibility
- website maintenance: pass over the maintenance burden on our shoulders; we provide ongoing updates and continuous maintenance and support
For more information on how our talented Drupal experts can help you build a robust project for your web development needs, contact us.
Photo credit: Unsplash.
