Recently, some Chase Vice President attempted to force their Big dinosaur think on me and other wrong assumptions and so let's refute it public so that all Chicago Startups have the right information and avoid the wrong assumptions.
Media often sells this make believe story that if one attends a hackathon as a non-tech and non-designer that the work of start-ups happen and that there is no preparation for hacking it and going fast. Unfortunately, its not true.
Even worse, the habit of the recruiting industry of asking for a resume and or sample code of an android app is just as bad as those are indirect artifacts of several processes and really are not a direct indication that the preparation work and libraries were completed. One could complete an android app without the preparation and thus that person hired to create an android app from scratch without any supervision from above would be somewhat extremely messy and chaotic. Something a StartUp would need to avoid as usually in mobile apps you only get one shot, the first time with android app users.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
So you the StartUp need to look for some specific things and they are:
1. Android is a multiple OS version environment, unlike iOS one version, and thus
one has to prepare compatibility libraries that span both areas of UI and non-UI. Generally, its from 75 to 150 libraries depending upon the complexity of feature differences between OS versions and that is AFTER taking into account Google's own meek attempt at compatibility libraries.
AND,oh yes there is an and, any 3rd party libraries in this area tend to be not of the quality desired in production apps and thus cannot be relied upon.
You find out these things by engaging an android developer in conversations about their git code repositories at github or bitbucket as no resume in this mobile industry shows such details because recruiters do not ask for this and do not understand it in the first place. My own github account has 150+ android libraries covering these areas. Its one of the reasons why I can guarantee that 85% to 95% of the new features of an Android OS version release can be back ported to previous versions, because I have done exactly that stunt.
2. Google has switched to a new build system called Gradle. This means
that developer that just created one app does not have enough Groovy and Gradle practice to be able to create a reliable set of Gradle build scripts that represent a mature android app development workflow that integrates all the android app development and java development best practices to ensure production of a quality android application in a resilient and reliable way.
Once again, to steer around this you should ask the potential android app developer about their gradle build script experience and their git code repositories reflecting this. I got lucky as I was exposed to gradle in my startup work and thus was able to come up with a gradle build script strategy to integrate android app development tools and best practices and I am even writing a book about it. And again you will not see this directly mentioned in a resume as recruiters do not know about and do not ask about it.
3. A good indicator that they might have those preparation libraries in the areas
of UI-back-ported features in their github or bitbucket code repositories would be to check to see if they have written android app tech articles and posted them somewhere. For example, my android app development and startup article posts are at medium(articles listed in the profile):
If the market was full of experienced android app developers you could of course rely fully upon a resume recruiter interruption scheme to find the android app developer for your startup. However, that is not the current market. The current market demand has far out-stripped any supply of Senior Android App Developers and thus relying upon those methods will produce a failure in getting that first android app for your startup to market without a chaotic mess that costs the startup customers.
AND, it would help if some of the Chicago StartUps might understand that if they GaryVee(Google research if you do not know, watch his damn youtube videos!) GET IT; than the android app developer might feel that the startup might have a shot at being successful rather than craping out after a year.
Remember folks, you are seeking for a different Senior Android App Developer than say Groupon. As your chosen guy or gal has to create everything from scratch and go from Zero-to-One whereas a mature Startup like Groupon only has to worry about finding a Senior Android App Developer to go from One-to-Tenth-of-One in increments.
The things your android developer has to create from scratch range from the UI-back ported libraries to get a consistent look and feel to the android app on multiple OS versions to creating something of a user-lab to study user reactions and behavior when using the android application. That is not the mature incremental approach as Groupon already has both those things internally and thus an android developer joining Groupon is never asked or filter for those things as Groupon already has them. Your StartUp does not have those things.
Would it not make sense to find out if a Senior Android App Developer is creating those things on their own iniative? The recruiter does not filter and seek for these things in a Senior Android App Developer for your startup as they have no experience with it and it does not put extra money in their pocket. If you do not ask than you do not benefit. WhY?
By having the startup-aligned-interests co-founder act as recruiter and ask these things of potential job applicants the co-founder receives educational training in what it takes to be a Senior Android App Developer by the nature of having to do research on all the things the potential job applicant mentioned. That means that when the choice is made for a Senior Android App Developer it will be a stronger choice than if that whole effort was out-source to the unaligned-interest-wise recruiter.
Go for the Awesome, Go for the Glory, ask for the developer conversation about their android app and android library git code repositories rather than the drive-by-ask-to-send-resume-code-request.
SIDE NOTE: Some ill-formed idiot wrote an Android Article for BuiltInChicago, recently, claiming that an the IT-centric ISO-certification covers android development. Well, no it does not and it covers dinosaur software processes like WaterFall which all mobile app developers avoid. And IT has proven again and again that it really does not understand how to create an android app that android device users would want to use, you really do not want that for your StartUp.(yes, the author of that wrong article has an IT dev shop)
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