Comprehensive Guide on Hiring a Front-End Developer

Starting a website is easier than ever, another challenge is a clear front-end that boosts business results. It has to be UI/UX friendly, has powerful security tips, meets the requirements of Google Page Speed, be clean for SEO, and be helpful for digital marketers. What front-end skills do you require for your project? What level of front-end developers will be most relevant and profitable? How to boost your project and keep the reasonable rates? How to hire a front-end developer and find a dedicated team player?

In this article, we are going to give you a comprehensive guide on how to hire front-end developers and save money on the backend development stage, then.

Front-End Developer Roles and Responsibilities

When comparing full-stack vs backend vs frontend, the front-end programmer is responsible for the design pixel perfect implementation & maintenance of websites built with a combination of HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and other related technologies. When it comes to how to hire front-end programmers, you need to know what their roles and responsibilities are.

Building the Frontend Architecture

A frontend programmer is responsible for implementing visual elements that users see and interact with within a web application. They are usually supported by back-end web developers, who are responsible for server-side application logic and integration of the work front-end specialists do. The key value of frontend architecture is the opportunity to update and upgrade your site in the recent future. It will give you a longer site’s life circle and time for ROI.

Designing User Interactions on Websites

When a website is built, the goal of each page is to achieve something specific. For example, the homepage should connect visitors with your company by giving them an overview of what you do. Good user interaction involves making sure that your website is easy to use and that you have good usability features built-in. The job of a frontend expert is to make sure that the website design is pixel perfect, responsive and UI/UX addicted to psd-to-html.

Writing JavaScript, CSS, HTML/XHTML/HTML5 codes

Frontend coders must have a strong grasp of programming languages like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML, as well as frameworks like AngularJS or ReactJS. They use markup languages like HTML to create user-facing pages, CSS to dictate the appearance and layout of those pages, and JavaScript to program the behavior of web applications. You may even hire HTML developers.

Optimizing websites and applications for maximum speed and scalability

Frontend specialists are responsible for optimizing sites and applications for scalability and maximizing speed according to Google Page Speed, for example. They conduct testing to ensure the efficiency and responsiveness of applications. Frontend programmers are also responsible for the security and ensuring that the frontend code is compatible with various browsers and operating systems, responsive on different devices.

Ensuring responsiveness of websites and applications

Responsiveness means ensuring that a website looks nice on any device, from the iMac to the smartphone with the smallest screen. The cross-devices’, cross-browsers’ site performance is integral to ensuring a seamless customer journey on any device. After all, users often switch between a desktop, tablet, and smartphone, depending on the usage context. Therefore, responsiveness can have a great influence on the business results: conversion, purchase amount, return customers rate.

Skills of a Frontend Developer

Frontend programmers must be able to implement the design on the web page with CSS/HTML basically. To add animation, security tips, etc – you’ll need a front-end developer skilled with JavaScript, AngularJS, or ReactJS. They are able to bridge the gap between graphic design and backend implementation. We prepared the list of skills that should guide you to hire a front-end expert due to your task and budget.

Core Coding Skills

A good frontend web coder must have excellent coding skills in various programming languages and frameworks. At the basic level, they should be familiar with HTML, CSS (psd-to-html markup), and JavaScript only ready-to-implement code. A mid-level developer should be good with JavaScript implementation to create a solution and resolve any code conflicts. Also, they should be familiar with either AngularJS or ReactJS. For full-stack front-end developers, in addition to all the others, they must also be able to work with some backend frameworks.

Visual Skills

Choose front-end development specialists who possess strong visual skills, are passionate about design and have an eye for what looks good. They should be able to understand the creative vision of your business and work with designers to create a website that embodies it. Visual skills are realized via Photoshop, Figma, Adobe Illustrator, and some other visual software.

Browser development tools

The browser has a console, debugger, network inspector, and other features that help the frontend developer troubleshoot and improve their code. A good frontend developer should know what web app functionality testing is and how to use these tools to test their code and optimize it for the browser.

Version control

Version-control systems allow developers to keep track of changes made over time, so they can revert back if something goes wrong or collaborate with other developers on team projects. The most popular version control system is Git, which allows developers to store changes locally as well as remotely.

Debugging & Testing

A good frontend professional should be able to test their code in different browsers and devices using browser development tools. They should also be able to debug their code using console tools in these browsers. If there is any cross-browser compatibility issue, they should be able to fix it.

Soft skills

The most important front-end soft skills are creativity and flexibility, open-mindedness, a keen interest in new technologies, excellent communication skills, a strong desire to learn, and the ability to work well in a team. They also need exceptional problem-solving skills. Middle frontend developers and upper should know how to find the source of the problem and come up with solutions quickly so that everything is back on track as soon as possible.

Front-End Developer Seniority

Many startup owners and CTOs are in search of a front-end web developer for hire, but they have doubts about what exact technology stack for web application development they require. Instead of going with the flow, it’s better to define your needs first. There are three major types of frontend professionals based on experience: junior, middle, and senior. Knowing who you should hire makes the process much easier.

Junior Developer

A junior coder usually works under the supervision of more experienced team members. You require at least an experienced full stack developer for 3-5 juniors and a team lead to support them.

Probably, when you hire a front-end web developer team with a big number of juniors in the team, you can save budget, though lose your deadlines. So, if you decide to hire a junior front-end developer, you need to change deadlines and make sure you have experienced frontend developers who will be mentoring the juniors and testing the code quality.

Mid-Level Developer

The mid-level frontend coder has at least two years of practical experience. They are most often responsible for maintaining existing websites, as well as adding new features to them. Middle developers are able to work independently on projects, but still may require support from more experienced colleagues regarding issues they haven’t encountered before.

In addition to a basic level understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, they should be particularly skilled in the implementation of these tools to craft creative solutions.

Senior Developer

A senior frontend programmer is someone who has many years of professional experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as well as PHP. A senior front-end developer can easily implement complex features on their own, that’s exactly what we mean under the full stack developer. They also have excellent leadership skills and can provide needed guidance and direction to a team of mid-level and junior developers. The highest senior developers’ level is contributing to projects‘ architecture and problem-solving.

Options of Hiring a Front-End Developer

Hiring a front-end developer can be really challenging. Most frontend developers learn from experience. So they don’t have system knowledge. If you’re looking to hire juniors and middle front-end developers, you will need to onboard them and add to your developing process -it can take time and resources. So less rated developers can turn to more costs

Local Talents

Local talents are easier to manage, however, this is more expensive when hiring a front-end developer. This is because local talents are usually hired for full-time employment and an employer has additional costs such as; compensations, social assurance, tax, and onboarding costs. Another issue with locals is time to hire, that can be 6-12 months.

As for the benefits of hiring locally, you can easily communicate with them since they are working within your time zone and are more likely to understand your needs and expectations.

Offshore Talents

In comparison, hiring offshore front-end developers will allow you to tap into a larger pool of talent at a fraction of the cost. Although, due to the cultural and physical distance involved, managing offshore teams can be challenging. However, you can hire a frontend development team such as ProCoders whose developers have gained experience working together on so many other projects in the past.

What makes Procoders’ developers different from all the rest offshoring talents and attracting clients for more than 10 years? First, it’s various experiences with startups and middle business projects, strong skills, fluent English, and dedicated partnership. As well, we can add our unique business culture and innovative mindsets, that boost our developers to deliver not code, but solutions and value.

Hybrid Teams

A hybrid team consists of both office-based and remote frontend developers.

As we have gotten used to remote working for the last few years, it’s a good opportunity to reduce developing costs and diversify your team. One of the common ways to hire remote frontend developers is offshoring or outstaffing. A hybrid team ensures that you get the best of both worlds: reasonable prices while making sure that there is someone who is easily accessible in case you need assistance.

ProCoders can help you achieve this, too, especially if you require staff augmentation services and want a specialist to join your team to fulfill specific needs.

6 Steps to Hire a Front-End Developer

When your startup tech stack for the front end is settled, it’s time to move on with hiring a front-end developer. At this point, it’s not enough to just hire a front-end coder that is qualified, you need someone who will bring positive energy to your team and business. Check out these steps that we follow in ProCoders. Hopefully, this short guide will help you to find and hire appropriate front-end developers.

Step 1: Write a Clear Job Description

Before sending out job ads and interviewing candidates, you need to figure out what role they’re going to play in your company. Put together a job description that clearly outlines expectations and qualifications. Start by considering what role you need to be filled. Do you need someone with specific experience? What tech stack and level of tasks? What personality traits would make someone successful in the position?

Step 2: Create a Screening Process

One of the biggest challenges in hiring front-end developers is sifting through all the unqualified resumes. Because this is such an in-demand skill set, many people will apply for your job even if they don’t have the appropriate skills or experience. There are two types of screening you should perform when hiring new employees.

The first is technical screening, which will determine if the candidates have the skill set you require. The second is cultural screening, which will help you figure out if they’ll be a good fit at your company.

Step 3: Gain benefits from candidates’ interview

The first interview is usually aimed at scanning soft skills, motivation, and developers’ mindsets. More so, simply asking questions cannot enable you to effectively check coding style and delivery solutions. Therefore, at ProCoders, we use test tasks, supplied to developers who pass the first interview. Upon passing the test task as well, the candidates will have a second interview, usually with a team lead.

Step 4: Check the portfolio of candidates

Every developer has a portfolio of sites, apps, add-ons, and components they have created. A developer’s portfolio is a great way to see what kind of projects they have worked on, plus it will give you an idea about the type of work they are capable of and whether that fits your needs. Try to look for candidates whose portfolio matches your needs. For example, if you require someone who can do both mobile and desktop websites, you’ll want to look for developers who specialize in both.

Step 5: Test task

The test task is what enables us to determine the coding style of the developers. In order to make a decision, we do more than simply asking questions. We want a live experience of candidates handling a coding task. From there, we can learn what style they use and how it impacts the delivery of solutions. If they fit well into our goals as a company, the candidates proceed to the next task.

Step 6: Second interview with team lead

The second interview with the team lead is to finalize agreements and give information on the project at hand, in order to determine if the candidate is up to the task. At this stage, we must have already determined that the developer is skillful and motivated enough to work on the project.

Front-End Developer Interview Questions

When you are looking to hire a full-time front-end developer, it is important that you first prepare a large list of interview questions to ask. This list should include both technical and behavioral questions to help you understand the candidate’s skill set and personality fit for your company. So, what are the best front-end developer interview questions to ask?

• What was your biggest challenge at work?
• Have you ever used version control tools?
• Give an example of when you showed initiative and took the lead in a project or task
• What are some of your favorite tools for developing using JavaScript? Why?
• Describe one or two of your recent projects and their requirements. Which parts of the project did you enjoy most and least?
• How do you stay organized when managing multiple projects?
• What’s your preferred development environment?
• What are your favorite resources/websites to learn front-end development?
• How do you keep up-to-date with the latest trends in front-end development?
• What are some of the design constraints when developing apps for mobile devices?
• What is responsive design and how does it work?
• What tools would you use to test your code’s performance?
• What are some ways you can decrease page load (perceived or actual load time)?
• If you could master one technology this year, what would it be?
• What is your experience working with RESTful APIs?
• What is HTML5? What is the difference between HTML and HTML5?
• How would you architect a large CSS project?
• What are some of your favorite developer tools?
• What is progressive enhancement? How does it relate to graceful degradation? How does it affect development decisions (e.g. performance)?
• Describe a time when you had to solve a complex technical problem with very little guidance

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Front-End Developer

If you’ve never hired a front-end developer, then you might have no idea how much it’s going to cost. The market for hiring a front-end developer has matured and evolved into an extremely complex system involving multiple factors. Comparing front-end developer salaries from different locations would show you how to refine your considerations.

Country	Junior	Mid-Level	Senior
United States	$75000	$110000	$125000
United Kingdom	$70000	$105000	$121000
Germany	$60000	$102000	$115000
Canada	$55000	$80000	$105000
Central Europe	$43000	$70000	$95000

Why Hire Front-End Developers from ProCoders?

You need a website that is responsive, looks great on all devices and is functional. However, how do you find a frontend developer? Who do you hire? How much time do they spend on actual coding, and how much time on the design? How much will it cost? What if there’s a problem, who fixes it? These are just some of the questions every business owner asks themselves before hiring a front-end developer.

Thankfully, ProCoders is around to attend to your needs. We have experience building interactive websites with our expert front-end developers who are ready to jump on your project. Whether your project is a SaaS solution, an IoT app, or a logistics service, ProCoders has done it all and our start team is ready to provide smart solutions for your startup.

Conclusion

The steps to hire a front-end engineer can be challenging. Hiring the wrong professional can waste time, money, and energy – and potentially jeopardize the future of your project or company. However, if you decide to hire front-end developers by yourself, you can follow our advice and succeed. ProCoders can improve your team with experienced and highly skilled frontend developers, who’re already selected and tested.

To find out how ProCoders’ developers can assist you with your project, give us a call today.