When most hiring managers look for developers, Git tends to show up as just another bullet point on the resume—“Proficient in Git.” But in reality, Git isn’t just a checkbox skill; it’s the backbone of collaboration for every modern development team. Whether you’re managing a team of two or two hundred, hiring someone who truly knows Git can make your projects smoother, faster, and far less stressful. So when you hire Git developers, you’re not just looking for code contributors—you’re looking for team players who can manage branches, resolve conflicts, and keep your codebase clean and conflict-free.
In this blog, we’ll walk through 10 essential skills to look for when hiring Git-savvy developers. From everyday tasks to advanced branching strategies and real-world troubleshooting, these are the competencies that actually move the needle in fast-paced dev teams. Whether you’re scaling your engineering squad or replacing a key contributor, knowing what to screen for can save tech companies countless hours in rework and debugging later.
What Sets a Great Git User Apart from Just Another Developer in the Repo?
Deep Understanding of Git Basics
Sure, anyone can clone a repo and commit a few changes—but true proficiency goes further. A solid Git developer should understand key concepts like the staging area, commit history, and how Git tracks changes at a granular level.
This foundational knowledge ensures fewer errors during common workflows. For example, knowing the difference between git add . and git add -A may sound small, but it can prevent broken features and deployment issues.
When you hire Git developers, ask about their typical workflow. Can they explain what happens under the hood when they commit? Do they know how Git uses SHA-1 to track objects? The best candidates will show clear, working knowledge—not just habits they’ve picked up from using GitHub.
Experience with Branching Strategies
Not all Git workflows are created equal. A developer who commits directly to main might be fine for personal projects—but in a team setting, it’s a red flag. Look for candidates who are familiar with branching models like:
- Git Flow
- GitHub Flow
- Trunk-Based Development
They should be comfortable creating feature branches, rebasing, merging, and using pull requests effectively. More importantly, they should know when to use these techniques, not just how.
Tech companies with large teams or CI/CD pipelines rely heavily on branching discipline. Ask candidates how they manage long-running features, resolve merge conflicts, or keep their branches up to date with upstream changes.
Conflict Resolution and Merge Mastery
Conflicts are inevitable in team development—but how developers handle them makes all the difference.
Great Git developers don’t panic when they see a merge conflict. They understand:
- How to resolve line-by-line conflicts
- The importance of commit history clarity
- When to squash or rebase for clean histories
- How to use tools like git mergetool, VS Code integrations, or CLI-based conflict solvers
Ask candidates to walk you through the last merge conflict they resolved. Were they proactive in communicating with teammates? Did they introduce a bug in the process? Their response will show how well they handle high-pressure situations.
Commit Hygiene
Ever seen a commit history that looks like this?
- matlab
- CopyEdit
- fix
- final fix
- another fix
- ok really final fix
It’s a nightmare for anyone trying to debug, revert changes, or understand how a feature evolved. Good Git developers write meaningful commit messages, group related changes together, and know when to amend vs. create a new commit.
You’re not just hiring for Git knowledge—you’re hiring for Git etiquette. When you hire Git developers, ask to see a sample project or GitHub repo and check their commit messages. Are they descriptive? Do they tell a clear story?
A clean commit history is a sign of a developer who respects their team and future maintainers.
Familiarity with Git Hooks
Git isn’t just about pushing and pulling code—it can also enforce standards. Developers who understand Git hooks can automate processes like:
- Running tests before committing
- Enforcing code formatting (e.g., Prettier, ESLint)
- Blocking bad commits (e.g., no console.log in production)
These pre-commit and pre-push hooks can be powerful quality gates in fast-moving teams. While not every developer needs to be a Git hook expert, familiarity shows initiative and process maturity.
If you’re building a team that values clean, consistent output, this skill should be on your radar.
Ability to Work with Remote Repositories
Git is distributed—but that doesn’t mean everyone understands how to work with remotes properly.
Look for candidates who know how to:
- Add and manage multiple remotes
- Use git fetch, git pull, and git push correctly
- Understand upstream/downstream relationships
- Set up forks and contribute via pull requests
In tech companies with distributed teams or open-source collaboration, managing remotes effectively becomes a daily responsibility. Bonus points if they’ve contributed to shared projects on GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket before.
Knowledge of Rebase vs. Merge (and When to Use Them)
Rebasing can clean up your commit history beautifully—but misuse it, and you can rewrite shared history and cause a mess.
A qualified Git developer should:
- Know when to rebase (e.g., local cleanup)
- Know when to avoid rebase (e.g., on public branches)
- Understand git cherry-pick, reflog, and how to recover from mistakes
Ask candidates how they manage feature branches that fall behind. Do they prefer merging main into the feature, or rebasing? The nuance in their answer will tell you how much they value a clean, understandable Git history.
Comfort with Git CLI and GUI Tools
There’s no “right” way to use Git—CLI or GUI, both are valid. What matters is flexibility.
Strong Git developers should:
- Be comfortable using Git via terminal commands
- Know how to resolve issues manually if a GUI tool fails
- Use Git clients like SourceTree, Tower, or GitKraken effectively
- Understand Git integration in IDEs like VS Code, JetBrains, etc.
While some tasks are faster with a GUI, knowing the CLI ensures developers aren’t stuck when visual tools hit a limit. Flexibility here is a sign of true expertise.
Troubleshooting and Recovery Skills
Git is powerful—but also unforgiving if you make the wrong move. A valuable Git developer knows how to undo mistakes using:
- git reflog
- git reset (soft, mixed, hard)
- git revert
- git stash
They should also understand the risk levels of each action. For example, a candidate who casually uses git reset –hard on shared branches might not be a great team fit.
When you hire Git developers, you’re not just looking for builders—you’re hiring problem-solvers who can recover quickly when things go sideways.
Understanding of Team-Based Workflows
At the end of the day, Git is about collaboration. The best Git users aren’t lone coders—they’re team contributors.
They should:
- Understand how to review pull requests
- Leave constructive comments and code suggestions
- Coordinate with teammates on shared branches
- Know how to use tagging, release branches, and Git versioning best practices
Ask about their experience in team settings. Do they wait for code review feedback? Do they collaborate on conflict resolution? Tech companies thrive on coordination, and Git developers who embrace this are worth their weight in gold.
Final Thoughts: Git Skills Go Beyond Version Control
Hiring for Git isn’t just about version control—it’s about building efficient, collaborative, low-friction development teams. When you hire Git developers, you’re hiring people who can prevent messes, clean up codebases, and help teams ship faster.
Whether you’re scaling a team or replacing a critical developer, these skills can save your company time, energy, and thousands of dollars in technical debt.