The user interface or UI is the first thing your clients see when they visit your website. Considering that people are visual creatures, a well-made UI can involve a bigger target audience. In order to build a high-quality user interface, it’s necessary to hire front-end developers. So, there is a guide that will assist you during the hiring process.
Developers are usually divided into three categories according to their knowledge and experience. As a result, there are junior, middle and senior engineers. Which one should you hire?
Junior Front-End Developer. They have just started working and usually have knowledge of one programming language or framework. Having less than a year of working experience they are able to solve only a limited number of tasks. Front-end developers of this level often require mentoring from more qualified colleagues.
Middle to Senior Front-End Developers. The more experience developers gain, the more complicated tasks they can conquer. These engineers already have enough experience to examine project objectives or budget limitations to choose the best technologies. Such builders have already worked 3-5+ years and can predict the consequences of their decisions.
So, what developer to hire? The answer always lays in the requirements and objectives of your project. If you have a quite small project (e.g. a landing page), a junior developer may be everything that you need. However, the more complicated tools you want to implement, the more skilled developers are required.
If you are not a technical guru, there are some front-end engineer’s responsibilities that are important to consider beforehand.
Front-end engineers typically use such tools as HTML and CSS. However, it’s impossible to ignore JavaScript language. This technology is good for creating dynamic user interactions.
Furthermore, there are a lot of other basis technologies and skills for a front-end developer.
There are three popular ways to find web development service vendors: freelancer, in-house developer, and remote engineer. Each of them has some benefits and drawbacks that are discussed below.
It’s obvious that this variant is the most affordable one. Hiring freelancers only when you need them, you are able to save money on sick leaves, vacations, etc. However, hiring freelance developers may cause a lot of problems. Many freelance engineers live in another time zone, so it’s difficult to control the development process. Moreover, you have no protection if the freelancer leaves your project.
Platforms to hire:
Working with a monthly salary and in well-equipped office, developers become a good team and, as a result, solve urgent tasks faster. On the other hand, hiring an in-house developer is time-consuming because you need time to find, interview, and onboard engineers. Moreover, there are some expenses like taxes, hardware, software, rent, etc.
Platforms to hire:
Nowadays there are many offshore software development companies from different countries, so prices can vary a lot. So, outsourcing engineers work on your project remotely, as a result, you don’t need to pay for office rent, taxes, etc. Moreover, it’s necessary to mention that these developers work as a team, so the communication process is much easier. However, locating in different countries you may face a time zone problem.
Platforms to hire:
So, concluding this part, freelance developers are good for building some small projects. But if your project is quite big and complicated, it’s better to choose between in-house developers and outsourcing vendors.
During the interview, it’s important to check the candidates’ hard and soft skills. Hard skills are about any necessary technical knowledge. For example, there can be such questions as:
Soft skills consist of social, communication and other skills required to work in a team. During the interview, you may check such abilities:
In 2017, Codementor.io conducted a study. According to it, the highest front-end developer rates are in the USA and Australia. Eastern Europe is one of the cheapest regions. For example, in North America and Australia developers can earn from $101 to $120 per hour. However, living in Latin America, Western Europe, and Middle East developer hourly rates vary from $61 to $80.
Hiring a developer on a full-time basis, it’s more important to know their annual salary. The most expensive countries are the US, Israel, Australia, and Germany. The average salary range from $50,955 to $68,600. However, there are cheap countries like Ukraine, South Africa, and India where average annual salaries are from $6,206 to 22,000. Furthermore, front-end developers salary can depend even on the city where they live. So, if you want to find out more information, it’s better to visit Indeed.
As for global outsourcing rates, the tendency is the same: the most expensive regions are North America and Australia while the cheapest -- Asia and Eastern Europe. As a result, in North America and Australia average outsourced front-end developer cost is $140 or $105 per hour respectively. But in Eastern Europe, the average hourly rate is $55.
So, wrapping up, hiring front-end developer can be time-consuming and, of course, requires some technical knowledge. Hope that our guide has helped you.
Nataliia Kharchenko is a Technical Writer at Cleveroad. It is web and mobile app development company in Ukraine. We are focused on helping startups, small, and medium businesses create competitive and winning software. I enjoy bringing a digital world closer to people and writing about technology, mobile apps, innovations, and progressive management models.