Two Market sided business Technologies

Question

I wanna start a new business and I have experience in product-management. I would like to know which programming languages and Technologies are appropriate to start with them?

Finding top developers are suggested or start with CTO?

Thanks

Answer 1

I wanna start a new business and I'm as a Product manager role would like to know which programming languages and Technologies are appropriate.

Appropriate programming languages are whatever are best suited for the given job. Without explaining what are the requirements it's impossible to suggest a tool.

Languages that are often used in modern development: JavaScript (for frontend and for backend using Node.js), Python, Go, Ruby, Erlang, Haskell.

Languages that are rarely appropriate for modern applications: Pascal, Cobol, Fortran, Basic, Logo, Modula, Algol, BCPL, APL, CPL, IPL.

Some specific needs may require C, C++, Java, Objective C, various Assembly languages, or even a custom general or domain specific programming language.

Of course there are exceptions because depending on your needs Fortran (especially modern versions of the language) can be perfect for your requirements. It all depends on your specific needs.

Like with every tool - to know what's the best tool for the job, you need to know what's the job first. Otherwise it's like asking what power tools are appropriate. Appropriate for what? This is the question that first needs to get asked.

But something that is often overlooked is the job market. E.g. for backend technologies, the fastest growing right now is Node.js but the are 3 job offers per one job applicant for Node.js (according to Indeed.com) while there are 3 job applicants per one job offer for Java.

Having that in mind it is much easier to hire Java developers cheaply (and this is getting even better from the point of view of the hiring side because the number of job offers is declining while the number of interested programmers is growing) than it is to hire Node.js developer (and this is getting worse from the point of view of the hiring side, because the job offers are growing faster than the people interested - and people interested does not necessarily mean people qualified - as is often demonstrated by the level of questions asked here by people who claim to program in Node professionally).

Also, How I should find a CTO?

Someone with high reputation on Stack Overflow, obviously. You need someone who has experience in the technology but who also can find problems in other people's work and to teach them best practices if needed.

CTO should not only be a great programmer with years of experience with the technology that you're going to use. He or she needs to be able to understand limitations of the skills of other people and needs to be able to explain difficult topic and abstract concepts to subordinates with great ease, sophistication and eloquence.

The required skills can often be demonstrated on Stack Overflow, as the very fact that someone cares about the technology enough to provide advice to other people is a sure sign of being committed to acquiring and sharing knowledge. The reputation is a result of that.

In short: someone among the elite of Stack Overflow - high reputation, hard to get badges for the technologies that you need, someone who demonstrates technical excellence and soft skills at the same time.

Good places to start your search would be:

1. Take a look at what are currently the top users in a given week and every week look at the first 100 to see who's writing about the technology you need. A top 100 from 6.8 million users is an elite of the elite so you can't go wrong.
2. See who has at least the silver badge for the technology of your choice (for example for Node.js it's less than 80 people worldwide so it's easy to search through).
3. Search Stack Overflow for questions tagged with the technology that you're looking for and read who writes the answers. Read all of the answers, not only the accepted or the highest voted ones. If you find an interesting answer see what that user has also written.
4. See the list of core contributors to the technology of your choice. For example for Node it is the AUTHORS file in the source code.

The examples that i provided above are mostly about Node.js because this is something with which I'm currently working exclusively but similar resources can be easily found for other technologies.

Hiring is a difficult process. Hiring a good CTO is an art in itself. And choosing a correct technology stack is crucial to your success. So it's a very hard job that you have right now and you need to put a lot of efford to choose wisely. Good luck.