e o f t

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Sca
a r e
asino f t
1 7 . 3w2 %
0 1 7
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SSta
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www.codingsans.com
 13 Introduction
14 Used tools

14 Cool partners
19 Hiring talents

15 About this
survey 25 Software
outsourcing

8 27
Managing
Performance
software
measurement
development

2 3
 It would take long to count the possible challenges startups are
facing.

They need to act fast, learn fast and be as flexible as possible to sur-
vive and grow. But tackling business challenges is not the only diffi-
culty startups have to overcome.

Intro-
I used to work for a startup as a marketer, entertaining myself
mostly with business-related challenges but working closely with
tech people. I sensed the feeling of creating a product that serves
high-demand business needs.

Needless to say, there was huge pressure on the software teams.

duction
It was difficult to keep up with the technological changes, learn new
technologies and apply new tools, manage software development,
create roadmaps and estimate project length.

Tackling capacity issues and finding the most effective ways to ship
the product people are looking for was also a challenge while build-
ing teams that were able to achieve that.

With this report, we want to shed light on how startups actually do it.

This is the first time we have published this report, and this is the
first report focusing on software development at startup companies.
Were bringing some exciting new data, and we wont stop here.

Were planning to publish this report every year to see how trends
are changing and how the startup ecosystem is evolving.

Along with the benchmark data youve come to expect, weve also
looked at technologies, management methods, hiring practices, per-
formance measurement and outsourcing practices.

We may not have a crystal ball, but we took a glance in the future to
provide some informed predictions.

Feel free to share the statistics by clicking on the logo.

4 5
 Cool
Partners
They helped us promote this survey
and were a pleasure to work with.

6 7
 About this
survey
We asked 126 tech people working for start-
ups about software development. This
chapter provides more info about who
they are, what company they work for
and where theyre based.

8 9
 30.40% 7.40%
B2C North America

11.10%
Central & South
America
67.2%
B2B

To whom does
your company 11..10% Where are
55.6%
Europe
primarily sell? Middle
you based?
East, Africa
2.40%
B2G

14.8%
How many Asia & Australia
full-time
employees
does your
company 25.40% IT Services/Consulting 26.19%
15.08%
have? Other
Marketing, PR or Advertising 9.52%
20.63%
Financial Services 7.14%
19.05%
17.46% Arts & Entertainment 6.35%
Healthcare 6.35%
Education 5.56%
Telecommunications 4.76% What industry
9.52% Automotive 3.17%
are you in?
7.94% Consumer Goods 2.38%
Hospitality 1.59%
Government 1.59%
Training/Coaching 1.59%
Retail 1.59%
0-5 6-10 11-20 21-40 41-100 101+
10 11
 5.56% 3.17%
Angel Series B 1.59%
Investment Series C
How big is your
software team?

11.90% 26.98%
Other Seed
What was your
latest investment
round? 44.44%

26.19%
24.60% Series A
Bootstrapped

3.17%
Founder 26.19%
2.38%
Director of Product 20.63%
0.79%
3.97% VP of Engineering
Engineering Director
0.79%
Lead developer
4.76%
Software Developer 53.97%
Chief Technology 3.97% 4.76%
9.52% Whats your role Officer
CEO in your company?

9.52% 1-5 6-10 11-25 26-40 41+

Head of Engineering

11.11%
Other

12 13
 Managing
software
development
The biggest challenges todays startups face
is hiring talents. The next is prioritizing de-
velopment and managing human capaci-
ty for the project.

14 15
 What is your biggest challenge What have you done to overcome
in software development? these challenges?

35.48% The most popular way to overcome this challenge is

to hire a head hunter or agency and also to use pro-
fessional connections to get talent on board. Another
way is to allocate more time for hiring and posting job
offers on job websites.

25.00% The number one way to handle prioritization

challenges is by listening to potential users and
existing customers by doing interviews and
conducting surveys.

Hiring a dedicated product manager or spend-

ing more time on product management is a
possible way out from this challenge.

Holding regular meetings (daily stand-ups and

13.71% prioritization meetings) are also applied meth-
ods to prioritize software development.

8.06% The most widely used way to overcome

7.26% capacity issues is to keep product devel-
5.65% opment more focused, only paying
4.84% attention to things that are aligned with
business goals.

Hiring more people and outsourcing are

also practices startups use to handle
capacity issues.
Hiring Prioritizing Capacity Other Time man- Selecting Keeping
talent development agement technology employeesl

16 17
 Scrum56.35%
Scrum 56.35%

Kanban35.71%
Kanban 35.71%

Lean software
Lean softwaredevelopment
development20.63%
20.63%

Agile modeling 15.87%

Agile modeling 15.87%

Extreme
Extremeprogramming
programming(XP) 12.70%
(XP) 12.70%

Feature-driven development (FDD) 12.70%

We dont use agile methodology 12.70%

Scrumban 10.32%

Rapid application development 8.73%

Adaptive software development (ASD) 6.35%

Disciplined agile delivery 4.76%

3.17%

Crystal Clear methods 1.59%

Do you use any of these
Dynamic systems development method (DSDM) 1.59% agile software development
Other 0.79%
methodologies?
18 19
 JavaScript 52.38% 0.79% Other

Java 36.51% 2.38% Objective C

Python 32.54% 3.17% C++

3.97% C
PHP 22.22%
3.97% Ruby
Swift 22.22%
What are your companys pri-
3.97% C#
C# 16.67% mary programming languages?
3.97% PHP
Ruby What new programming lan-
15.08% guages are you considering to
7.94% Swift
use in the next 12 months?
C++ 14.29%
7.94% Java
Objective C 10.32%
11.90% Go
TypeScript 9.52%
11.90% TypeScript

C 8.73% 11.90% Python

Go 6.35% 15.08% JavaScript

Other 0.79% 42.86% Not considering

 8 8%
44 .
e s
What is your companys top ur
a t
software development priority fe
in the next 12 months? e w
n
ng
d i
il
B u

6 9 %
1 9.
c t
d u
o 2 %
pr 17. 3
g
il n VP
S ca M
ing
a s
l e
R e %
4 5
9.
c e
a n 6 %
r m 8 .6
r fo er
pe th
O
ing
o v
pr
Im 23
 15.62%
Yes

25.40%
No

74.60%
Yes Are you planning
to allow remote
work in the next
12 months?

Is remote work
allowed at
your company?
84.38%
No

On average, 23.54% of a
software team works re-
motely.

24 25
 Used Tools
Startups cant really avoid using tools for
project management, team communication,
software testing and version control. This
chapter shows what portion of startups
use these tools, what are the most pop-
ular ones and what factors limit them
from using one.

26 27
 What are the We dont need it yet 28.95%
factors that are
limiting you Time to use 26.32%
from using one?
Time to research 15.79%
Budget / costs 13.16%
70.6%
Yes
29.4%No
Im not sure how to use it
7.89%
What tool do you Other
7.89%
use for testing?

31.46%
Do you use any
Other is the biggest category.
tools for software This clearly shows that start-
testing? ups use a wide variety of tools
for software testing.
17.98%
13.48%
8.99%
5.62% 5.62% 5.62%
4.49% 4.49% 3.37%
3.37% 2.25%
Other

Cucumber
Jenkins

Mocha
Selenium

Rspec

CircleCI

Karma

PHPUnit

Chai

Codeship

Xunit
28 29
 What tool do you
use for project
5.56%
No
management?
94.44%
Yes
Jira 36.97%
Other 30.25%
Trello 21.01%
Asana 11.76%
Do you use any tools for
project management? Github 8.40%
Google Sheets/ Excel 4.20%
Pivotal tracker 3.36%
Basecamp
2.52%
Slack
2.52%

30 31
 What version
control system
do you use?
7.1%
No

92.7%
Yes 91.45%

Do you use version

control?
4.27% 1.71% 1.71% 0.85%
Git Other SVN TFS SCM

32 33
 What tools do you
use to communicate
during the projects?

85.71%

66.67%

38.10% 37.30%

12.70%
5.56% 3.97%
1.59% 1.59% 0.79%

Slack Email Google Skype Go to meeting Facebook Hipchat Bitrix24 Pie Hall
Hangouts

34 35
 Hiring
Talents
Hiring is the biggest challenge soft-
ware teams are facing. This chapter
shows how startups hire, keep
talents and also the most im-
portant hiring criterias for
software developers.

36 37
 What's your most efficient
method to hire talents?

34.92%
30.16%

13.49% 12.70%
9.52% 8.73%
6.35%

Employee Professional Recruitment No specific way In-house Online HR Havent

referrals connections agency or recruiter portals done it yet
Headhunter

38 39
 On average, how
many weeks do you

7.34
need to recruit a soft-
ware engineer?

weeks
The median is 6 weeks.

40 41
 Not surprisingly, the number one hiring criteria for
What are your software developers is work experience. Cultural fit is
most important the second most often looked criteria. Interestingly,
side and test projects are prefered over BSc or MSc
hiring criteria? degrees and certificates. Experience rocks!

Work experience 68.50%

Cultural fit 59.84%

Test project 31.50%

Side projects 30.71%

Other 8.66%

BSc degree 5.51%

MSc degree 5.51%

Certifications 3.94%

42 43
 How do you convince Challenging job, team culture and flex-
ible working hours are the top incen-
How do you keep Once a developer is on board, the most
widely used ways to keep them at the
them to work for tives startups use to attract talents. software developers company for long term are great team
culture and interesting tasks/jobs.
your company? motivated?

Interesting/challenging tasks 78.74% Great team 58.27%

Team 63.78%
Challenging/engaging work 57.48%
Flexible working hours 38.58%

Stock option 29.92%

Exciting product 44.88%
Remote work 28.35%
Autonomy 44.88%
Higher salary 10.24%

Other 4.72%
Variety of tasks 29.13%

Trainings 16.54%

Stock options 16.54%

Carrier path 13.39%

Extra benefits 13.39%

Money 11.81%

44 45
 90.48%
How many software devel-
opers will be needed for the
industry 5 years from now?

4.76% 3.97%

Demand
More Less wont change

46 47
 Software
outsourcing
Outsourcing software development is an
option to handle capacity issues. It turned
out that 56.3% of startups have already
outsourced software development to
an external partner.

25
48 49
 56.3% of startups already worked with an
external contractor (freelancer, software
development company). 43.7% havent
outsourced software development to any- 31%
body but 14.5% of them are planning to do 29.6% Freelancer
it in the next 12 months. Both

To whom?
43.7%
No 56.3%
Yes

39.4%
Software Development
Have you ever out- 24% of startups were dis-
Company

sourced software satisfied with the results

while 48% were satisfied
development fully with software outsourcing.
or partly?
33.80%
28.17%

14.08% 12.68%
11.27%

Absolutely Sort of satis- Okay Not really Absolutely

satisfied fied satisfied dissatisfied
50 51
 Performance
measurement
The number of completed tasks and code
readability are the top ways to measure a
software developers performance. Howev-
er, 27% of startups dont use any kind of
metrics to measure performance.

52 53
 What metrics do What tools do you
you use to measure use?
performance?

Completed
tasks 61.11% None 31.75%

Code
readability 28.57% Other 20.63%

We dont use JIRA 9.52%

any metrics 26.98%

Git 3.97%
Speed of
developer 25.40%

Google Sheets/ Excel 3.17%

Number 21.43%
of bugs

Trello 3.17%
Test cov- 19.05%
erage
Zoho 1.59%
Other 4.76%
Jenkins 1.59%
Lines of code
written 1.59%

54 55
 How do you make The most popular ways to keep
codebase readable are in-line com-
the code easily ments and documentation.
readable when
someone leaves
the project?

48.82% 48.03%

38.58%

19.69%

Using in-
3.94%
Commenting
within the dustry style No specific
code Documentation guide way Other

56 57
 Bylines and
Methodologies
Coding Sans fielded an online survey from
February 2017 until March 2017.
The survey was available in English and con-
sisted of 45 questions. The responses were
sourced via email invitations, partnering
with other companies, social sharing and
community promotions. No personal
information was collected within the
survey, and books were offered
for responses as incentives.

58 59
 31 Coding Sans is a software development company, we
help cool companies build awesome web and mobile
applications.

Were based in Hungary working for companies all

around the world.

Nice to
Lets connect:
Our Facebook page

meet you
Yes, Twitter
Our Linkedin page

Say hi here: info@codingsans.com

Talk with a human: Matt Wohlmuth +36-30-281-5252

Questions & Feedback: tamas@codingsans.com

Snail mail: 1051 Budapest, Arany Jnos u. 10., Hungary

Website: www.codingsans.com

60 61