How to Hire Front-End Developers: Steps You Should Follow

Website appearance matters a lot. This is the criterion a user judges about the company and makes decisions.

A compelling appearance can improve brand recognition, user involvement in dialog, and increase sales as a result. A bad look will more likely harm the reputation and make no sales at all.

To make the site appearance meet your expectations and bring value to the company, it is important to hire professional front-end HTML filers to take good care of it.

In This Article, You Will Know:

• Who is a Front-End developer,
• What types of Front-End developers exist,
• What basic skills should this person possess,
• How to assess these skills,
• How much will a Front-End developer cost.

Who is a Front-End developer

A front-end developer – is a specialist who is in charge of the visible part of a site. The main job is to make the site clear and easy to interact with for users.
According to Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020, a front-end developer is included in the Top 3 most popular profession in the IT-sphere.

To make attractive and easy to use websites and applications a Front-end developer:

• Works with clients to develop website design;
• Uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to bring the design to life;
• Creates, supports, and changes features that improve user interaction;
• Creates tool that improve user work with the site in different browsers;
• Enables website accessibility on various platforms, including laptops and smartphones;
• Bug-fixes and tests website usability.

The set of responsibilities performed by a front-end developer directly depends on the project complexity and the type of the assigned task.

Before hiring a developer, it is important to determine the amount of work to be done since this will affect the further choice of a developer and his salary.

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Types of Front-End developers

There are several types of front-end developers the vast majority of whom are JavaScript developers.

Javascript – is a programming language designed for website development.

To facilitate their work when accomplishing similar tasks, Javascript developers use frameworks.

Framework – is a ready code structure created by someone else. Using this structure makes site creation easier rather than starting from scratch.

The title of a developer directly depends on the name of the mastered framework.

React, Angular, and Vue lead among all the JavaScript frameworks. Any of them can be used for any project, however depending on the situation a certain framework might become more handy and efficient than others.

React Front-end developer

At the moment, React is the most popular framework (over 80 % of developers use it). It was created by Facebook in 2013 and is still being actively supported.

Due to high framework popularity React developers are the easiest to find on the market. Framework advantages include flexibility and easy integration with other development tools.

React is mostly popular with startups when creating simple sites and applications.

Angular Front-end developer

Angular is in the second position (used by 56% of respondents). It was developed by Google in 2010.

Unlike React, Angular has a fair amount of ready solutions and a more elaborate system of collecting and storing data. On one hand, it facilitates the construction of big websites and ensures robust functioning, however, on the other hand, impairs system flexibility that is common for React.

Angular is most popular for large projects with a rigid structure.

Vue Front-end developer

Vue – is the third most popular Javascript framework (49% use it). It was created by Google’s ex-employee Evan You in 2014.

Vue is the easiest to master and one of the most convenient frameworks for developers, which simplifies its integration in the existing projects.

Vue works for both small and big projects. This is the best choice if you create a sophisticated one-page application and want to integrate it with modern tools.

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Must-have skills for Front-End developer

Even though all front-end developers differ, there is a basic skill set without which they are not able to do their work. Any Front-end developer should:

• Understand key principles of web design;
• Know HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery;
• Be able to work with JavaScript and CSS frameworks;
• Be able to use CSS preprocessors;
• Understand architectural approaches to API design, principles of work of proxy-servers and other web-servers used in the system;
• Understand RESTful API/GraphQL, ES6 (classes, variables, and visibility range, array methods, async/await), Typescript (types, decorators, interfaces);
• Know version control system and other tools of development;
• Be able to create an adaptive design;
• Use web-application testing tools.

In addition to basic knowledge and skills a developer should also possess specific knowledge of the framework he specializes in:

In addition to Hard Skills, a developer should possess a certain set of Soft Skills. For instance, teamwork, time management, task prioritizing, and other skills. Check our article “Why soft skills matter when hiring a software developer” to learn more about what skills are worth paying attention to and how to assess them while hiring a developer.

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How to assess a Front-End developer: interview and test cases

Before hiring a front-end developer you should check his professional knowledge.

We prepared a list of general questions you might consider asking a front-end developer during an interview. We also highlighted additional questions for React, Angular, and Vue specialist.

Common Front-End interview questions

Q1. What is the difference between HTML and HTML5?
A1. The main difference between HTML and HTML5 is that HTML is a standard markup language to create web pages while HTML5 is a newer and extended version of HTML with additional functions such as web sockets, Canvas, improved video, audio, and geolocation support.

Q2. What is CSS Grid?
A2. CSS Grid – is the system optimized to create two-dimensional layouts. It is ideal for site templates, forms, galleries, and everything that requires precise and responsive positioning.

Q3. What is semantic HTML?
А3. Semantic HTML means usage of the most appropriate tag for a certain task. It means the use of major assets such as form, article, and table instead of using div and span only.

React Front-End developer interview questions

Q1. What are the peculiarities of React?
А1. The main peculiarities of React are:

• use of virtual DOM;
• component approach;
• use of JSX.

Q2. What is JSX?
А2. JSX – is an acronym for JavaScript XML. This is the type of file that uses expressiveness of JS together with HTML syntax similar to a template. It facilitates understanding an HTML file.

Q3. How are forms created in React?
А3. Forms in React are similar to forms in HTML. However, in React the state is contained in the property of the state component and is updated only through setState (). Thus, elements can’t directly update their states and their passing is processed by the JavaScript function.

Angular Front-End developer interview questions

Q1. What are components and what are they required for?
А1. In Angular one component contains other components resulting in a structure resembling a tree consisting of building blocks enabling user interface creation. Components in Angular can be treated as basic building blocks the whole user interface is made of. Every component has it’s intent inside an application. For instance, a blog feed is one component, read post is another component. Components are motion-sensitive and respond to user actions including click, open, minimize, maximize, etc.

Q2. What is the difference between a component and a module?
A2. Components control HTML itself and visualization. Modules consist of one or several components and serve to determine what is in the application.

A module is a kind of a box containing all the parts of the application, while components are building blocks containing the functional elements of the same application.

Q3. What is the difference between @Component and @Directive?
A3. Directives assign behavior pattern (color, size, styles, etc.) however at the same time they don’t create their functionality and structure for the application. Whey work within the component and the component in its turn creates the structure where template behavior can be assigned through a directive.

Vue Front-End developer interview questions

Q1. How can we get request parameters in Vue.js?
А1. You have access to the $route objects from your components that provides what is needed.

Q2. What are Vue.js components?
А2. Components – is one of the most powerful functions of Vue.js. Vue components have customizable elements that help to extend basic HTML elements to encapsulate repeatedly used code.

Q3. How can two-way binding be created in Vue.js?
А3. In Vue.js the v-model directive is used to create two-way bindings.
In two-way binding, the data or model is bound to the DOM and the Dom is bound back to the model.

Questions to be asked are mainly determined by the seniority and professional level. More detailed information on how to interview React, Angular, and Vue developers is provided in our articles How to hire React JS developer, How to Hire Angular developer, How to hire VueJS developer.

Test case

It is also important to assess the candidate’s practical skills during the interview. This can be done using special sites that host various test cases and assignments.

Read more about where to find appropriate test assignments in our article Top 8 Best Coding Interview Platforms in 2021

How much does it cost to hire Front-End developers?

Now when you know what developer you need and how to assess his level of knowledge, there are two more questions to answer: where to find one and how much it will cost.

First of all the cost of hiring a front-end developer will depend on the location and specialization.

Below we provide front-end developers’ rates in different parts of the globe. Data is in free access and was taken from the research of global search engines for employment (Glassdoor, PayScale, ZipRecruiter, and Salary.com).

For more information on what affects the cost of a developer, as well as how to reduce it, read our article How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Software Developer.

Another thing to consider before you make the final decision where to look for a required developer is the model of your future interaction. Decide if you are going to hire this person as a full-time staff member, or you need him just for a short-term project.

Answers to this and other questions will pretty much define where you are going to look for an appropriate developer. You will learn about this from our article How and Where to Find Developers Who Meet Your Needs.

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Summing up

In this article we tried to put together the key moments to pay attention to when hiring a front-end developer:

• Who is a front-end developer;
• What are the duties and tasks performed;
• What types of front developers exist;
• What basic skills should this person possess;
• How to assess these skills;
• And finally, how much will a front-end developer cost.

Contact us if you still have unanswered questions and we’ll be happy to answer them.