A Holistic View on the Sitecore Market

Sitecore is a spectacular content product. It is such a good product that selling it is easy, and using it to add, change, or remove content, once implemented correctly, is an easy and pleasant long-term experience. This is especially true of content management in general, but Sitecore has the edge in terms of usability and content management through a powerful UI/UX WYSIWYG called the Experience Editor. You do not have to know how to code and it is remarkably powerful.

Then, we have the Sitecore market. Companies buy Sitecore, sometimes without having a Sitecore specialized resource already in place, but even when they do, their expectations are higher than they should be, (my experience has taught me that this is the case with all software, and especially web application development). Timelines are too optimistic, and project management rarely accounts for all the possibilities properly to assess risks in a way that sets expectations in a reasonable way. 

Let me be clear: the process of project management does not matter here, whether it is PMP, Scrum, or CMMI: the ability to assess and manage risk over time is inherently flawed because people are involved in the process. You cannot account for Bob getting sick, or Sarah's parents passing away and either of them being gone for a week or two. Life happens, and because of that project management is inherently unable to address anomalies.

Sitecore sells itself by being a rapid-to-market CMS / CEP solution. This is true. When implemented correctly, Sitecore is a spectacular content and experience management solution, but it often takes a team to do it right, and it takes a team to do it quickly. The same tenets apply to all software development situations. You pay more, you get more, but there is a limit to how much you can get, and to the number of people on a team that can be effective. You sacrifice quality for speed, and speed for quality; there is a happy balance. 

So, why talk about all of this when it comes to the Sitecore Market? Let us first define the Sitecore Market: the market of companies who want to implement Sitecore, have paid for it already, and are invested in seeing it through, to include the number of developers available with experience in Sitecore, who possess the capacity and capability to implement it logically in a way that applies to future, simple non-developmental changes down the road (with the Experience Editor).

Looking at the software development industry as a whole there is already a lack of developers in the market. When you concentrate that down more, the number of those developers who possess experience in web technologies, including web servers, JavaScript, web sockets, HTML, CSS and style precompiling, and then backend technologies, you have an even smaller pool. Sitecore as a platform primarily runs on top of .Net MVC. So now the pool is smaller, and we are looking at developers comfortable with IIS, SQL Server, Visual Studio (C# and VB.Net), MVC or ASP.Net, too. Then we get to Sitecore, AND Sitecore version and implementations with other criteria. 

Many implementations of web applications are not trying to do things with Angular, React, etc., an entirely different layering of technology on top of those that depend on a content-serving technology like Sitecore. Sometimes companies decided to use Mongo, Couchbase, or AWS DynamoDB for various NoSQL database handling reasons. 

Given all this criteria of experience, we can surmise that there are not a lot of developers who possess the gamut of skill sets required, let alone are also certified as developers in using Sitecore.

So then, with all the specificity of hiring a developer, let alone a Senior Developer with practical, hands-on experience in the multitude of products and technologies already used on a project, the Sitecore Market we described earlier introduces a level of competition between developers that is acute. Not just for compensation and wages, but then between companies who want to hire them.

Most companies looking for Sitecore developers want the obvious things; an onsite Senior Developer with all that aforementioned experience, who is also great at working with a team, a good communicator, and someone who is likely good in a leadership-like position, as they will likely be expected to not only communicate, but train other non-Sitecore developers on how to use Sitecore properly. This may include any aspect of development or development operations, as Sitecore requires an understanding of SQL and how it constructs data, and then moving it between instances becomes even more complicated. The market demands that Sitecore developers possess all that experience, capacity, and capability.

But then it comes to finding those developers. Nobody seems to want to hire remote engineers. I get it: people working on a team, work better, faster, and more efficiently when they are all in one place, and can talk, interact, and socialize. Increasing communication always increases team effectiveness, but are you looking for that from the developer you want to hire? Or are you looking for that developer to just come in, and implement the solution you wanted in the first place? Probably both, right? But when it comes down to it, the most important thing, dollar for dollar, is to get the Sitecore web application up and working. If you want to spend money, or budget properly for maintaining the site in the long term, then you also have taken the time to invest properly in making sure your other developers get trained on how to use and implement with Sitecore. 

So why not hire that remote developer; manage the situation closely and see if you are getting your expectations met along the way? Trying to find Sitecore developers is already difficult enough. Hiring an agency, with a plethora of experience, or a fully remote independent developer, either way is a better choice than just waiting it out to find that unicorn. A unicorn who wants to live where ever it is that you have a business, has Sitecore experience, and is willing to take a salary at whatever rate is likely not as reasonable as the plethora of other companies willing to pay for remote Sitecore developers.

Agencies need the business, developers need the business, and the only reason you are hesitant as a company is because the person is remote. Many, many developers work remotely with success, and some do so even better than when they are in an office every day. I certainly do.

As you begin to look at the Sitecore Market to hire a developer, consider your priorities, the risks and impact of time passing without having work progress forward, and the total cost of not mitigating all of this by just getting a developer into place as early as possible. Sitecore developers realize there are not enough developers to go around, let alone Sitecore developers to go around. If you are hesitant now about finding a Sitecore agency or remote developers, you will not be as hesitant in a three to six months after you have not found a local Sitecore developer and are in a frantic situation that you must scramble to get things done because time lines and delivery dates are less likely to slide to the right. 

If anything the Sitecore Market needs to learn: Get past your hesitancy and reach out to find an Agency or remote Sitecore developer and save money sooner. That or be ready and willing to compensate a developer to move, live locally, and be that unicorn you truly desire.

About the Author

Jeremy Streeter is a professional software engineer, with a passion for business, management, and technology. He has a MS in Software Engineering, BS in Computer Science, and AS in Electronics, and multiple certifications. His experience ranges from IT and Network Engineering and Analysis, to Software Development and team management. He is experienced on an array of technologies, with a deep interest in web, data science, and unsupervised machine learning. He loves to cycle, swim, and enjoy the occasional table top RPG when his busy life allows it, too.