According to a 2019 survey conducted by Stack Overflow among 90,000 developers, front-end developers are currently the third biggest group of all developers — 32.8 percent of respondents considered themselves front-end devs. Their global number is also growing constantly because most people who get interested in web development start their careers by learning all the basics of front-end, including development in JavaScript.
What does this tell a business looking to invest heavily in its digital product?
- There are a lot of front-end web developers for hire...
- …but a lot of those people are not necessarily as experienced and skillful as you might want them to be.
To help you make a good decision and hire front-end developers who will get the job done in the most effective way, we’ve prepared a guide that explains everything you need to consider during the hiring process.
The main responsibilities of a front-end developer
Front-end developers are responsible for the part of a website visible to a customer — all of the design and functionality. Front-end developers are often put into opposition to back-end developers, who focus on things that are not visible to the customer, such as server maintenance and flow of data.
To truly understand the role of front-end developers on a web production team, it’s best to look at their typical responsibilities. These usually include:
- Building the design (or the front-end) of the website, often with the help of a web designer.
- Introducing new website features.
- Adjusting the website’s design for all popular devices (desktop, phones, tablets).
- Optimizing the website’s performance, often in collaboration with back-end developers.
- Maintaining the website by, for example, regularly updating/migrating the front-end frameworks to their most recent releases.
- Building mockups and prototypes.
- Improving design-related SEO.
- Testing the site.
- Introducing the best UX (user experience) practices to the website.
- Writing reusable code, internal libraries and modules/components.
The hard skills to look for in a front-end developer
When you want to hire front-end developers, it’s crucial to assess their technical skills. If they have the desired skill set, they will be able to handle all the previously mentioned responsibilities without a hassle, delivering great web products efficiently.
So what are the most important hard skills to consider when looking for a front-end web developer to hire?
- Proficiency in HTML, CSS and JavaScript
These three languages are the core of front-end development. Knowing them provides the most important base for creating beautiful and user-friendly websites and web apps.
Additionally, you might also consider looking for front-end developers with knowledge of TypeScript. It’s a superset of JavaScript that introduces a few very useful features (such as real-time code checking) and can be used with some popular front-end frameworks like Angular or React.
- Experience with popular front-end frameworks and library
Is developing a great web product without frameworks and libraries possible? It sure is. But it will take significantly more time and money to write the code for a website from scratch.
Instead, it’s common for front-developers to speed up the development process with these accessible solutions. Frameworks and libraries are often developed by industry giants like Google (Angular) or Facebook (React), so you can be sure they are trustworthy, proven tools.
- Knowledge of design best practices
As a person working directly on the visuals of a website, a front-end developer must be familiar with all the best practices and current trends in the web design world. This includes experience creating data- and research-based user experience (UX) and user interface (UI).
- Knowledge of SEO best practices
Search engine optimization (SEO) means adjusting the website so it ranks as high as possible on search engines such as Google. This job is partly done by copywriters, as they are the ones preparing text content for the website. But front-end developers also have a number of ways of improving the site’s SEO. If you want to make your product truly successful, it’s crucial to hire front-end developers with SEO knowledge.
The most crucial front-end developer soft skills
But a set of highly technical skills might not be enough to build a great web product in the most efficient way. Soft skills are important, as they support the whole team’s morale and improve cooperation within the company.
What soft skills should you consider when planning to hire front-end developers?
- Creativity
A great eye-catching and user-friendly front-end comes from a mind that can blend engineering craftsmanship with artistic vision. Creativity is the key to building products that really stand out and make interest customers from the first look.
- Understanding of the client’s needs
Creating a well-converting website requires tailoring it to what the customers actually want to see. A front-end developer who is able to put themselves in shoes of a non-tech-savvy person is your best bet to achieve the best results.
- Being approachable
The key to building great relations with colleagues. As front-end developers often have to cooperate with other people and teams in the company (back-end developers, data scientists, product owner), being approachable is a must-have soft skill for them.
Job interview questions to ask a front-end developer
A technical interview is an important part of every developer-related hiring process. If you don’t feel comfortable enough with relevant technology, such as JavaScript or its popular frameworks, it’s best to ask someone else for help in running the interview. Consider another web developer, software consultant or an IT project manager.
To give you an idea of how such a technical interview might look, we’ve listed some of our favorite questions to ask front-end web developers for hire. Please be aware, however, that different front-end developers specialize in different areas of web development, as well as different frameworks — meaning, you should also ask each developer additional questions based on their specialization and your unique needs.
- What is the difference between JavaScript’s .call and .apply?
- What is the difference between classical inheritance and prototypal inheritance?
- What are some ways of hiding content visually while still making it available for screen readers?
- CSS pseudo-elements — what are they and what would you use them for?
- What is progressive rendering?
- Cookie vs. session storage vs. local storage — what is the difference between these three?
- What is the difference between the call stack and task queue?
- What is event bubbling?
- How are JavaScript’s while and do-while loops different?
- What are immutable objects? How can you achieve code immutability?
The importance of front-end developer company fit
The cooperation between a new front-end developer and other team members can be improved even more if you consider the company fit in your hiring process. Even if you want to hire a freelance front-end developer who won’t be present in your office, there are three areas of company fit that you should keep in mind.
- Industry fit
Hiring front-end developers with previous experience in your industry gives you the advantage of having a person who already understands your target group who knows the type of web features they want to see.
- Product fit
Whatever kind of web product you have in mind, there are most likely already solutions on the market that are at least partly similar to it. Use this knowledge well and hire front-end developers who previously worked on such products. They will have the necessary experience and deliver the solutions you want faster.
- Company culture fit
Find a front-end developer who will blend in your company with ease. Look for people who share the same values as you and other people at the company and consider things like the preferred style of management, attitude toward remote work, focus on local/global and attitude towards diverse and inclusive work environments.
Beyond front-end
Having a front-end developer hired is only a part of the process of taking your product to the top. You will still need additional people on your team to handle other tasks, such as back-end developers to tackle all the server-side processes, data scientists to research your target group’s needs or an IT project manager who will make sure everything is delivered on time and according to the budget.
If you want to onboard all these people fast, reach out to us. At Ideamotive, we have established an industry-leading network of the finest IT professionals looking for new career opportunities. We always take your needs into consideration and only connect you with the candidates who best match your company and product specification.
Contact us today and start building an award-winning team.
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