IT sourcing – 13 best places to source programmers

The first rule of quality IT sourcing is: be where your talents are. Sourcing tools can be of great help but nevertheless, you need to know more about your target group.

So ask yourself some questions:

• Where do programmers spend their time?
• Where do they work on open source projects?
• Where do they share knowledge and help each other?

If you know the answer to these questions then you are on a good way on your IT sourcing path. Programmers are a specific group of people whose work is their passion and they spend their free time on programming on their own. You can easily find them when you know where to look for.

Have a look at these places and check them out. They’ve helped many IT recruiters with improving their sourcing strategy.

If you like and find particular programming portal listed underneath really useful, just tweet about it by clicking button below them.

1. StackOverflow

Stack Overflow is the biggest platform for users to ask and answer questions in computer programming field. It was founded in 2008 by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood – software developers who also run two of the most well-known blogs on programming. In 2015 Stack Overflow had 5 million registered users from all over the World and over 101 million monthly unique visitors. Users earn points and badges for their valued contribution. This system helps you discover the best programmers who are experts in their field. Search topics for skills, languages and then find programmers whose answers are voted as the best. Many users have links to their websites, Twitter in their profiles – use them to build relationships with your target. On Stack Overflow there is a job board where you can post your job ad. If you are an employer, there are tools for you to brand and advertise your company and candidate sourcing.   

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2. GitHub

GitHub is a site with open source code repository. It was founded in 2008 and it’s growing fast. GitHub has more than 14 million users and over 34 million projects which make it the largest host of source code in the World. All the users have technical skills and they are your potential talents. Even without registration you can browse the repository and you can check profiles of programmers who are contributing. They often have an email address, website or Twitter in their profiles. Check how many followers they have – the more followers a programmer has, the more likely they are specialists in their field. GitHub has also an advanced search engine which you can use to browse members with specific technical skills, talents, keywords in their profile, location, etc.

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3. Google Groups

Google Groups is a place where you can create your own group or join existed one. It is a popular community site for programmers. There are various groups where they can ask questions, discuss and share their interest. The groups are in several categories. The one which should bring your attention is the Computers category. This category is divided into many subcategories (such as Artificial Intelligence, Databases, Games, Operating Systems, Programming, Security, Software) and regions. Use also search engine to find many more groups and threads. You can join and follow them by email. Use a filter to find groups in any languages and don’t worry – even if you don’t know the language, you can use Google Translations in every post. The groups names are sometimes very specific so the more you know about the skills needed, the better group you discover. Examples of general groups are Android developers, Developers, more technical groups examples: Angular, Mongodb user.

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4. CodeProject

Code Project is a community for programmers with over 12 million users. It consists of a discussion board, the Lounge (board for members only), articles, tutorials, community surveys. Code Project aims at being the valuable resource and a place where programmers can learn, teach and have fun. Signing up is for free and once you register you can join all discussions. Compared to other boards, in the Lounge you can gain your reputation, because it is a place to talk about everything except programming questions (and ads). Be helpful, be remarkable and the talents will notice you. If you want to learn something on programming, the beginners’ tutorial section is a place for you. Without registration, you can browse articles, tips, questions. You can check randomly users and sometimes they have websites or social media accounts posted on their profiles.

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5. Hacker News

Hacker News is a site created by Y Combinator – investment fund and startup incubator. This site focuses on IT and startups world. Users have nicks instead of their real names and the profiles often have no information. Most of the programmers use the same nickname on different sites so you can check the names of people who seem to be interesting. In the section News users can post threads on topics they find interesting to other users. This section helps you find out what the programmers are interested in, what’s hot in their world. Comments section is a list of comments listed in the real time. Show is a list of things users created and want to share. Ask is a place with questions. For you the most important is the monthly thread Ask HN: Who is hiring? where you can post your job ads (just if you are part of the hiring company). If you are outside recruiter, you can find in this thread users who are looking for a job right now and check their profiles. Apart from the list of threads use search engine to find popular content, libraries, tools, languages. The site is often updated so it’s worth to check it daily.

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6. DZone

DZone is community and publisher of technical content for programmers. It has over 1 million users, mostly from Europe and the Americas and 91% of them have a college education. They use DZone to be up-to-date with IT world and share the most popular content in their field. Every post is moderated by editorial staff so it’s credible and interesting.

Monitor the articles to find users who fit your talent pool and know more about programming which may help you in talent sourcing as well. The content is divided into individual the zones which gather all material on specific fields. The most popular are Mobile and Java.

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7. Quora

Quora is a question and answer site covering almost every topic. Most of the profiles are created under real names and they are often descriptive. Questions are grouped into topics which you can individually follow and join. For example the topic Java has 434 thousand followers and over 28 thousand questions asked. Look for topics on the skills your talents should have and other programming related questions. Start with the largest: Computer Programming, Software Engineering (both over 1 million followers), Web Development, Programming Languages. Each topic has Top Stories and Most Viewed Writers which are an excellent place to look for tech stars. There is also list of related topic list so you can extend your search. Follow the best users to find where they are posting to discover more talents. Checking recent activity gets you an idea of their skills. Answers are being up-voted – the more votes, the higher chances to find a great talent. Quora is also a place where you can build your reputation as a recruiter. Be honest in your profile and help programmers with the questions you know the answer. Consider asking questions on tech recruiting to get the attention of your talents.

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8. Reddit

Reddit is one of the largest networking services with communities that hold discussions about particular interests. The biggest community on programming is a programming subreddit with more than 650 thousand users and the topics covered are more general than these on /r/coding. A /r/coding has a strict policy of programming-related discussions. There are many communities on programming languages with the biggest (over 116 thousand members) on Python – /r/python. Whole lists of languages on Reddit with the number of followers are here. There are two subreddits with job ads /r/forhire and /r/jobbit. You can not only post your offer, but you can also find people who are looking for a job. Other worth of visit subreddits are GameDev for game developers and AndroidDev for app developers. There is also a subreddit you can actively join – CS Career Questions where users ask about careers in Computer Science related fields. Membership of Reddit is free of charge and most of the users are anonymous but after registration you can send direct messages to users.

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9. XDA Developers

XDA Developers is a mobile software community with over 7 million users. It’s the best place to look for programmers who specialize in mobile. On XDA the mobile programmers can discuss and share information on systems such as: Android, Sailfish OS, Windows Phone, WebOS, Ubuntu Touch, Firefox OS and Tizen phones. There are also separate forums for each model of phones using those systems and Android apps and games. XDA has also an analysis section with editorials and opinions. To comment under articles in this section, you need to have a Disqus account. Comments on forums requires registration on the XDA platform. Members can be thanked and the more thanks in thanks meter, the helpful the user is. Most of the users don’t provide their real names and contact info.

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10. SitePoint

SitePoint is a website with forums and resources for web developers. It has over 230 thousand users.

You can browse profiles without registration but the users don’t post their names and contact information. Members get likes for their answers and comments and badges. The most important badges are the trust levels – look for the members who get the best levels: 2 and 3.

The most popular forums are HTML & CSS, JavaScript, PHP. All threads and user lists are sorted by time of the last post.

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11. CodeGuru

Code Guru is a small community site for Microsoft programmers and programming in C++, Visual Basic, .NET Framework etc. There are articles and whitepapers section and forum. By browsing articles you can find the experts, because of the strict guideline for the texts. The forum has 360 thousand members. To see the profiles you need to register. On forum you can see how many users are active in thread at the moment. The most popular threads are on Visual C++ Programming, C++ Non Visual C Issues, C Sharp, Visual Basic 6.0, Java. There is also job board with Open Positions and Looking for Work where you can post your offer or browse users who are looking for a job.

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12. Gitter

Gitter is a community site where programmers can talk about programming, developing related issues in group or private chats. There are more than 320 thousand users from more than 74 countries who are gather into over 40 thousand communities. If you have a GitHub account you can join Gitter with its account. Explore rooms to discover which one has the more users and posts (the more posts, the more active the room is). When you are in the room, you see the chat and users list and recent activity. Check users profiles to find their websites, contact and additional information. Some users are hiding over the nicknames but try to check them in search engine – you may find their Social Media accounts. After registration, you can follow the users to build your database.   

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13. Meetup

Meetups are the best idea to meet and IT sourcing in the real life. Find a meetup on a topic you want to source specialists in, in the area of your interest, check if you can join (some meetups are programmers only) and meet your talent pool. Check what they are passionate about, what’s their specialty. Not only you will know new people, but also it is a great chance to introduce yourself and build your reputation as a tech recruiter.

After registration on meetup.com you have an access to the members interested in the events related to your talent skills. Most of the users sign in with social media accounts so it’s easy to find them online.

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These resources are great to look for your talents, but if used uncarefully, they can harm you. Programmers often don’t like recruiters and when they find out you are using these resources just for IT sourcing, you can be pointed out and no coder will be interested in responding to you. Treat them well, help them when you can, build relationships, be sincere and they will come to you. They will find you.