Elixir is a clean, modern programming language dedicated to building great performing web back-end. Released for the first time in 2012, it has been from the start linked very closely to the old-school but useful Erlang — Elixir’s syntax is partly based on Erlang but, even more importantly, apps written in Elixir are run on Erlang virtual machine. This makes the language highly popular among companies and developers prioritizing distributed computing.
Besides Erlang, Elixir’s syntax is also inspired by Ruby and Clojure.
How can Elixir help your business?
Elixir has been utilized by various businesses across the globe, including WeChat, Discord, and Pinterest. The popularity of the language grows as more and more developers and companies discover its advantages over other, more recognizable solutions.
Some of the most important features of Elixir from the business perspective include:
- Amazing support for scalability — helping your business grow rapidly.
- Focus on concurrency — making it easier to serve millions of customers at the same time.
- Light on the server — allowing you to save money.
- Stunning performance — delivering great user experience to your customers.
- Fault tolerance — your product will keep working even if an issue arises.
- Distributed computing — making it a great option for cloud solutions and Internet of Things products.
The 10 skills your freelance Elixir developer must have
If you wish to power your web app’s back-end with Elixir, you will need to hire an Elixir developer. As there are not that many experts in the field just yet, quite a few of them deliver services on a freelance basis developing a product throughout its whole lifetime remotely or building only specific features to support the in-house team.
Whatever your exact needs are, your freelance Elixir developer should possess a set of specific skills to truly thrive in the role. While our list focuses on the hard, technical skills, we haven’t forgotten about the soft skills either, as they can highly support the cooperation and efficiency of your team.
- Expert understanding of Elixir
Elixir is approximately a decade old but most people jumped into the hype train just in the last few years. Because of this, don’t necessarily look for senior Elixir devs with 10 years of experience. Look at the overall development experience of your candidate and consider also people who transitioned to Elixir after working with Erlang, Ruby, Clojure, or the other back-end languages (such as Python, Java, or PHP).
- Experience with Phoenix
One could say that Phoenix is for Erlang what Rails is for Ruby — it’s the most widely used framework for the language. Phoenix makes development with Elixir simpler and faster, and it is the ideal solution for all businesses that plan to build highly scalable web applications. Just like the programming language itself, the framework is open source meaning you can use it free of charge.
- Experience with other Elixir frameworks and libraries
Knowledge of Phoenix might be a must due to its popularity but additional experience with other Elixir frameworks and libraries is also valuable — it expands the possibilities of what your freelance Elixir developer can achieve. Most Elixir tools, just like Phoenix, are dedicated to working with web apps. These include frameworks like Sugar, Plug, and Trot. Some other, more tailored solutions include Nerves (great for Internet of Things projects), Placid (for development of APIs), Anubis (for development of command line applications), and Absinthe (GraphQL server implementation).
- Proficiency in Erlang and its libraries
Erlang is one of the more traditional languages, released at first back in 1986. Elixir, however, breathed some new life into it as the new language is highly based on Erlang and allows (or, in fact, actually encourages) using Erlang’s code alongside its own. Elixir also supports Erlang libraries which come in great numbers.
- Understanding of Open Telecom Platform
The major collection of useful tools for Erlang, including middleware and libraries. As one can deduce from the name, it was primarily used by telecoms back in the day — but now anyone can take advantage of its amazing features in the area of distributed computing.
- Proficiency in front-end technologies
Even if you are planning to hire a freelance Elixir developer primarily to develop the back-end of your website, they should still be proficient in front-end technologies. This is because they will have to closely work with front-end devs to make sure the client-side and server-side of your app are well aligned.
The front-end tech stack of your freelance Elixir developer should include JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and ideally the client-side framework(s) you use or plan to use.
- Experience with version control tools
Crucial to and used in virtually every IT project. Version control tools allow developers to track changes done to the code of an app — this makes it easier to later review what went wrong in case an issue happens. The most popular version control on the market is Git.
- Experience with issue-tracking software
Tools helpful for managing the backlog of a product, including requests for new features and bug fixes. Most often handled by a Product Owner but developers also have to be familiar with the software to work efficiently. Some of the popular examples of issue-tracking tools include Jira, ClickUp, and Basecamp.
- Reliable time management
Even a properly managed backlog can’t assure your developer that their tasks won’t suddenly change at some point. That’s because if a critical problem occurs, your developer must be able to smoothly switch their priorities and take care of the issue. In situations like these, expert time management is crucial for keeping your product working smoothly 24/7.
- Researcher attitude
Desire to expand one’s knowledge should always be considered a huge plus — especially in such a specific field as Elixir development. Your freelance Elixir developer should be always on top of the news and updates on the language and relevant tools, and actively participate in the community to know who and where to ask when an unusual issue occurs.
What questions to ask a freelance Elixir developer?
To understand whether a freelance Elixir developer truly possesses all the skills mentioned above, running a proper job interview is a must. Such an interview, to provide reliable assessment, should be run by a person already experienced with Elixir projects. If you don’t have such experience, consider asking for assistance from another Elixir developer, an IT project manager, or a software consultant.
To give you an example of what questions can be asked to a freelance Elixir developer, we listed some of our favorites below.
- What is BEAM? How is it different from other VMs?
- How does Elixir handle concurrency?
- Agent, Task, and GenServer — what are the differences between these three?
- What is dialyzer? What are its limitations?
- When would you use an umbrella project?
- What is some OTP module that doesn't have a wrapper in the standard Elixir library?
- What can go wrong with clustering?
- How would you debug a highly concurrent system?
- How would you approach introducing Elixir to an already existing system?
- Is supervision good for handling retries?
What other experts does your company need?
An experienced freelance Elixir developer can guarantee your web app a reliable back-end. However, the server’s performance is only part of what makes a product successful. To truly stand out and grab the attention of customers, you will also need to hire front-end developers (e.g. React developers or Angular developers), web designers, and UX/UI designers. You can also never go wrong with supporting your team with data scientists, a Product Owner, and an IT project manager.
How to hire all these experts fast? There is an easy way to do it now. Get in touch with our Ideamotive experts — we run the industry-leading network of IT talents who are ready to work on your next big project. We have truly all the experts you need (including freelancer Elixir developers) and will match you only with the candidates that truly fit your unique requirements.
Contact us today and secure the success of your next web project.
