Do you know what the clients, stakeholders, and everyone interested in a site see first? Obviously, the design or user interface of the website. A top-notch & interactive user interface is not only aesthetic but it also makes your product trustworthy for the users. It distinguishes your organization or brand from the others and targets the users positively to make a purchase.
Of course, you will require highly experienced front-end developers for creating a high-quality UI. Since we know what are the pitfalls that a decision-maker has to face during the hiring of the front-end developers, we have written this article to help you know things on which you should focus during the hiring.
Position of the Front-end developers:
You must know that every developer whether backend or frontend has a position that can be either junior, middle, or a senior front-end developer. It is determined by their experience and skill level. But which developer must you hire to get quality and don’t overpay? Let’s know…
Junior Front-end Developer:
When the developers begin their career, they mostly have skills in one or two programming languages or frameworks. That’s why the range of technologies they possess allow them to handle limited projects or solve limited queries. These developers are supposed to build a stable app with the required functions.
However, these developers need the help of their team leads or senior developers and hence take time to develop an app. They first get knowledge and then implement it while developing the app. They may be unable to work without the help of their seniors. Hence, if you have complex requirements think twice to junior developers. Their experience is 0-1 years.
Middle to Senior Front-End Developer:
As the junior developers get the experience they get seniority and improvement in their skills. They can develop the apps curated to the custom requirements of the client. They can examine the business focus and budget limitation as well. Then they will choose the most appropriate technology for developing the product. A senior front-end developer can also give you many different alternatives for solving a problem and will also explain the benefit of each scenario. These developers have experience of 3-5 years.
Which developer to hire?
If you are counting the actual experience of the developer in years, then it wouldn’t be right. Sometimes a junior developer is not able to solve queries even after years of experience and thus don’t gain seniority while some junior developers are smart and can possess all the skills despite lack of experience. In short, the ultimate way to hire a front-end developer is to hire someone who can interview the candidates on your behalf and have years of experience in this industry. You can also define the skill set you require before hiring.
If your requirements are minor such as designing a landing page, or a simple business website, then it would be wise to hire a junior developer. However, if you have complex requirements then a junior developer will waste all your efforts, then consider more experienced developers.
Responsibilities of a front-end developer:
Before beginning the hiring process, you must look upon the responsibilities of the front-end developer. In the case, you aren’t from a technical background and don’t know what the responsibilities of a front-end developer are, then we have listed a few of them:
- Creating app layout using HTML and CSS
- Pixel perfect design of the app
- Create user interactions, animations, server responses (e.g. using AJAX)
- Application optimization to have maximum performance & scalability
In simple words, a front-end developer should have experience in designing and programming.
Skills of a Front-end Developer:
There are two important languages that a Front-end developer utilizes, HTML and CSS. But these are not the only tools that he/she uses. The developer must possess expertise in JavaScript. JavaScript is useful for creating dynamic user interactions. The other relevant technologies that a front-end developer must possess are:
- Highly Responsive design across different browsers and devices
- Pre-processors for CSS like SCSS and Sass
- Experience in modular frameworks which are used for creating a large application like Angular, React, Vue, etc.
- AJAX
- Backbone.js or jQuery
- CSS frameworks such as Foundation or BootStrap
- Testing in IDE
- GIT, BitBucket, etc.
As we mentioned above, the skills of a front-end developer will depend on their seniority or vice-versa. A senior front-end developer will be skilled in the above-mentioned different technologies, languages, and frameworks such as Node.js, Python, or PHP, and technology stacks like LAMP or MEAN.
Hiring process of the front-end developers:
There are many different ways which you can adopt for hiring a front-end developer such as outsourcing companies listings, freelancer portals, job boards, etc. But there are some drawbacks and benefits of each of these platforms. Let’s know these in more detail for each platform and determine what will suit you best.
Freelancers:
If you are looking for the most affordable option then you can opt for the freelancer. But there is always a darker side. A single freelancer wouldn’t be enough. And more the freelancers you will hire, more will be the problem of communication and teamwork. The development process would also be slower and have more bugs in the delivered product. Here are the merits & demerits:
· Merits:
The main benefit of opting a freelancer is the relatively low price. The reason for this is that on freelancing platforms there are thousands of freelancers listed there. This arises a huge competition and the developers get ready to work even at lower rates. Another benefit is that you will pay for the freelancer only when you need them. You don’t have to take responsibility for their sick leaves, vacation etc. They will even work on weekends if they want to make money. If you are not having time restrictions for your project then you can opt for it.
· Demerits:
The major con of freelancers is their dependability. Mostly the freelancers live in different continents, this raises the time zone issue. Hence, you can’t control their working timetables. Furthermore, you will also have a constant worry that the freelancer can leave your project in-between without a word, and you can’t do anything.
Platforms for hiring freelancers: Upwork, Peopleperhour, Freelancer, Fiverr, Toptal, Codementor
In-house developers:
If you are looking for long-term support then in-house developers is also a very good option. You can easily distinguish among the loyal and unloyal developers when they are working at your place. Also, you don’t have to worry about their leaves.
· Merits:
If you are giving office premises, and a monthly salary to the developers which will also get an increase over a period of time then this will motivate them to care about your business goal, objective, and mission. There are more chances that they will work with their maximum efficiency and become well-cooperated team players.
· Demerits:
If you are a startup or a small business then it wouldn’t be easy to afford a full-time frontend developer working at your premises. You have to pay a monthly salary and also give increments over a period of time whether you have work for him or not. There will also be expenses of software, hardware, office space, etc. You will also need the help of a recruiting agency to hire someone on your behalf and the process gets repeated as most of the developers switch their jobs.
Platforms to hire In-house developers: Indeed, Glassdoor, LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Dice
Outsourced Developers:
IT outsourcing services are becoming the best options due to the many benefits offered by them to the end clients. You just have to hire the developers in an IT outsourcing company from any country you prefer and they will work for you remotely from the company’s office. Thus, you don’t have to worry about office premises, rent, sick leave, etc. The company will take care of all these things.
Merits:
You don’t have to spend a penny extra on the above-mentioned expenses. Also, you can change the development team size as per your project requirement i.e. you can scale up or decrease the team size whenever you wish. Remember, the outsourcing company is not a group of freelancers, but a professional company who cares about their reputation and hence will leave no stone unturned to meet the requirements.
Demerits:
There are two main issues in outsourcing. First, the company may be located in another time zone so you may have issues with communication. Secondly, the rates are slightly higher.
Platforms for hiring outsourcing companies: Clutch, GoodFirms, IT Firms, TopDevelopers
Average Front-end developer hourly rates:
Let’s know what are the hourly rates of the developers by country and hiring options (freelancer, remote developer etc.)
Freelancing rates of Frontend Development:
The highest development rates are in the USA and Australia. The maximum differences in the rates between these two regions can be just 40%. Here are the details in this table:
| Country | Rates ($/hr) |
| United States | 70 |
| Australia | 70 |
| New Zealand | 70 |
| Canada | 65 |
| Middle East | 65 |
| Western Europe | 64 |
| Eastern Europe | 63 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 56 |
| Latin America | 55 |
| Asia | 51 |
| Former Soviet Union | 49 |
| Northern Africa | 41 |
Below are the countries with the least hourly rates, which can save up to 40% of your costs.
| Serbia | 52 |
| Nigeria | 52 |
| Argentina | 51 |
| Brazil | 51 |
| Honduras | 50 |
| Russia | 48 |
| Belarus | 48 |
| India | 46 |
| Ukraine | 44 |
| Pakistan | 43 |
The hourly rates of a junior frontend developer can range from $30-50 per hour in the USA or Eastern Europe, while the senior can cost you $50-70 per hour. However, you can save the cost and pay only $40-50 per hour if you hire from countries like India. You will get the best quality work at affordable rates.
Wrapping Up:
In this article, we have shown the different aspects that you must consider while hiring a front-end developer for your project requirements. At Amplework, the best mobile application development company in India, we are having the expert front-end developers which are of senior-level and are quite affordable. We offer different invoicing options such as hourly, by project, as well as work as per your priorities. Please let us know your requirements.
