How to hire a team lead and developer

How to hire a team lead and developer, step by step

Here's a step-by-step team lead and developer hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a team lead and developer job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new team lead and developer
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a team lead and developer do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you post your team lead and developer job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a team lead and developer for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A team lead and developer's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, team lead and developers from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   This list presents team lead and developer salaries for various positions.

   Type of Team Lead And Developer	Description	Hourly rate
   Team Lead And Developer	Software developers are the creative minds behind computer programs. Some develop the applications that allow people to do specific tasks on a computer or another device... Show more	$23-73
   Technical Team Lead	The responsibilities of a technical team lead revolve around overseeing the progress and performance of a technical team, ensuring they are functioning efficiently. They mostly delegate tasks, manage schedules, set goals, produce reports and presentations, respond to correspondence, and coordinate with staff, clients, and other department personnel to ensure accuracy and timeliness for all projects... Show more	$31-58
   Developer Analyst	A developer analyst is a professional who is responsible for building application requirements and develops database solutions that allow operational efficiency and user-friendly tools. Developer analysts are required to develop a detailed definition of business solutions that can include database design, data flow, and transaction processing requirements... Show more	$30-54

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Java
   • Architecture
   • C++
   • JavaScript
   • SQL Server
   • Object Oriented Programming
   • Web Application
   • Scrum
   • Application Development
   • Web Services
   • XML
   • JQuery
   • JSON
   • API

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Work on defect management process manage within JIRA system.
   • Manage a staff of remote senior developers and designers of varying languages utilizing scrum and agile.
   • Develop an internal test website using HTML and Perl to automate the team's software development status reporting.
   • Collaborate with business analysts and UI design team to gather requirements for the project and to manage scope.
   • Create XML and XSL files for displaying and transferring data; used DOM object to manage data in XML format.
   • Lead a highly efficient software developer team, along with database and QA engineers to deliver features in agile environment.

   More team lead and developer duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your team lead and developer job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A team lead and developer salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

   For example, the average salary for a team lead and developer in Missouri may be lower than in New York, and an entry-level team lead and developer usually earns less than a senior-level team lead and developer. Additionally, a team lead and developer with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

   Average team lead and developer salary

   $85,824yearly

   $41.26 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level team lead and developer salary

   $48,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 18, 2025

   Average team lead and developer salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$105,790	$51
   2	New York	$102,111	$49
   3	New Jersey	$95,749	$46
   4	Washington	$95,512	$46
   5	District of Columbia	$92,708	$45
   6	North Carolina	$90,758	$44
   7	Delaware	$88,787	$43
   8	Virginia	$84,901	$41
   9	Michigan	$81,600	$39
   10	New Mexico	$80,321	$39
   11	Massachusetts	$77,482	$37
   12	Georgia	$76,711	$37
   13	Texas	$76,684	$37
   14	Illinois	$73,225	$35
   15	Minnesota	$71,402	$34
   16	Indiana	$71,168	$34
   17	Ohio	$70,787	$34
   18	Alabama	$66,930	$32
   19	Utah	$66,575	$32
   20	Arizona	$65,928	$32

   Average team lead and developer salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Health Nucleus	$181,210	$87.12	1
   2	Google	$178,193	$85.67	618
   3	Barclays	$175,226	$84.24	4
   4	Citi	$171,081	$82.25	54
   5	Cloudera	$165,935	$79.78	4
   6	Bank of the West	$164,178	$78.93
   7	Twilio	$159,507	$76.69	4
   8	Chevron	$158,736	$76.32	1
   9	NetApp	$158,421	$76.16	37
   10	DTCC	$156,759	$75.36	45
   11	Palantir	$155,233	$74.63	120
   12	Vista Equity Partners	$152,765	$73.44	2
   13	Nutanix	$152,417	$73.28	8
   14	Acadian Asset Management	$151,815	$72.99
   15	Cornerstone	$148,457	$71.37
   16	Merrill Lynch	$147,241	$70.79
   17	Cisco	$142,970	$68.74	272
   18	AllianceBernstein	$141,297	$67.93	8
   19	HHMI	$134,531	$64.68
   20	Renewable Energy Group	$134,314	$64.57

4. Writing a team lead and developer job description

   A job description for a team lead and developer role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a team lead and developer job description:

   Team lead and developer job description example

   Xero is a beautiful, easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors grow and thrive.
   
   At Xero, our purpose is to make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. This purpose sits at the centre of everything we do. We support our people to do the best work of their lives so that they can help small businesses succeed through better tools, information and connections. Because when they succeed they make a difference, and when millions of small businesses are making a difference, the world is a more beautiful place.
   Our Purpose
   
   At Xero, we're here to make running a business beautiful. By making small businesses more efficient every day, connecting them with big business technology and empowering a community behind them, their potential is limitless. When that happens, we're not only helping small businesses, we'll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.
   
   How you'll make an impact
   
   You are a leader at the intersection of product and engineering management; support and help to drive the development of a suite of products that are crucial for Xero's continued success here in the UK.
   
   You'll maintain an environment in which your team can do their best work predictably and sustainably, ensuring the team has all the information they need and the right feedback loops in place to discover and deliver valuable, usable, and buildable outcomes.
   
   You'll help your team learn and improve, making local discoveries global. You'll look after the health of your team and their products, aiming for resilience, which as a truly remote team is of the utmost importance.
   What you'll do Drive a culture of engagement and improvement, making sure the team understands how they help our customers and our business achieve great outcomes.Talk with all appropriate areas of the organisation to understand the inputs, outputs, and feedback loops in your team's value stream.Make sure your team understands and adheres to modern engineering practice in line with organisation objectives.Build and maintain a positive and constructive relationship with the product owner to ensure the delivery pipeline is flowing at a predictable and sustainable pace, raising and addressing blockers as appropriate.Ensure the health of all the team's products is well understood by the team, discoverable by the wider organisation, and able to be addressed should problems occur.Ensure the health of your team is monitored, that all members of your team are empowered to raise ideas and concerns, and that everyone contributes to improvements in how the team works together.Ensure that your own stream of work is sustainable, delegating where appropriate, and asking peers and your manager for help.Spend a proportion of your time improving your knowledge and skills in line with goals set with your manager.Meet regularly with your reports, drive each of your people to become the highest performing version of themselves they can be, using a variety of techniques which may include performance feedback, career development, coaching and mentoring.Spend a proportion of your time on people-focused tasks, including recruitment, leave and expense approvals and management.As needed, review and manage performance, remuneration and facilitate any remedial actions.
   Success looks like Your team builds products that customers love and which achieve the intended business outcomes.Your team is highly engaged - everyone has a strong sense of purpose and feel they're contributing to making a positive difference in the world.You and your team maintain a predictable and sustainable delivery pace, reflect on practices and delivery, and constantly try to make improvements.Your reports grow in their responsibilities, capabilities, and contribution to their team and wider in the organisation
   What you'll bring with you Experience of leading and managing a software development team is essential Background in software development within .Net framework is highly advantageous Experience of developing Cloud or SaaS software would be beneficial Understanding of modern software delivery practices Understanding of modern product delivery practices Experience with agile practices Passion for helping people fulfil their potential through coaching and mentorship Transparent communication style and the ability to building effective relationships Growth mindset with pragmatic decision-making skills and strong collaboration skills Empathy for others Authenticity
   Why Xero?
   
   We are proud to have been recognised for UK's Best Workplaces™ for Women 2022, UK's Best Workplaces™ in Tech 2022, and named one of the UK's Best Workplaces™ 2022 (Great Place To Work).
   
   We pride ourselves in understanding our employees' experiences, ensuring we hone in on particular focus areas including equity, representation, fairness and promotion of shared parental leave, whilst actively promoting women in the workplace. At Xero we embrace diversity and inclusion and value a #challenge mindset.
   
   Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single competency or experience . If you are excited about this role, but your past experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be just the right person for this role and Xero. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at time of application and throughout the interview process.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find the right team lead and developer for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important sources of talent for any company is its existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and current employees and ask if they know or have worked with team lead and developers they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit team lead and developers who meet your education requirements.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter now have more than 3.5 billion users, and you can use social media to reach potential job candidates.

   To find team lead and developer candidates, you can consider the following options:

   • Post your job opening on Zippia or other job search websites.
   • Use niche websites that focus on engineering and technology jobs, such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post your job on free job posting websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting team lead and developers requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.

   While interviews are great, you will only sometimes learn enough from a conversation with a team lead and developer applicant. In those cases, having candidates complete a test project can go a long way in figuring out who's the most likely to succeed in the role. If you aren't a technical person and don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:

   • TestDome
   • CodeSignal
   • Testlify
   • BarRaiser
   • Coderbyte

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new team lead and developer

   Once you've decided on a perfect team lead and developer candidate, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, it should include benefits and perks available to the employee. Qualified candidates may be considered for other positions, so make sure your offer is competitive. Candidates may wish to negotiate. Once you've settled on the details, formalize your agreement with a contract.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new team lead and developer first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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