An Italian astronaut, Luca Parmitano, faced a life-threatening danger during his spacewalk in 2013. The water was leaking to his space helmet, making it difficult for him to breathe. Fortunately, his partner in this space travel, Chris Cassidy, wasn’t far away, so he could guide him safely to the airlock.
After this accident NASA decided to build a system for data on the lifecycle of spacesuits. Since it was a federally funded project, it had to be implemented well, fast, and as cost-effective as possible. Besides, it was essential to move big data to the cloud, so that NASA’s astronauts can work safely in space. To meet all requirements, Node.js was chosen for this project.
Today, Node.js has become increasingly popular, with use cases ranging from NASA to streaming services, like Netflix. In fact, 31.5% of coders opt for this programming language when building the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. If you want to find Node.js developers for your project but don’t know where to start, the JatApp team prepared this article to share our expert advice on the recruitment and vetting process.
First things first, who is Node.js developer?
A Node.js developer is someone who is building server-side web application logic using JavaScript or its alternatives, like IcedCoffeeScript and CoffeeScript. Please, remember that Javascript and Java are different programming languages. Software engineers are sensitive guys when it comes to their preferred languages, so it’s important to know the difference.
Node.js software engineers are typically responsible for the back-end part of an app, connecting the solution with other web services, and assisting the front-end engineers in integrating their work with the back-end components. One of the major benefits of Node.js is a faster development process, as the code is written on the server side.
What Node.js is used for
Now, how much do these guys charge?
When hiring a team of Node.js developers, many would have quite a reasonable question: how many Benjamin Franklins will I have to pay? To answer this question, you may want to consider Node.js developer’s salary and rates in different countries.
If you want to recruit coders as in-house employees (we’re going to talk about the hiring process in more detail a bit further), it would be a wise thing to compare their salaries rather than their rates. For example, in the United States the salary of a Node.js developer is relatively high, making up $114,022 per year. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, say, in Ukraine, the average salary would be almost twice lower, which is approximately 60,000$ per year.
If we’re talking about outsourcing your project to a software agency, we should take into account the coders’ rates. Again, in Ukraine the engineers’ rates are rather low, ranging from $40 to 80$ per hour. Similar rates can be found in Latin American countries, like Colombia ($45-$65 per hour). Still, we need to admit that Indian Node.js coders would charge the lowest, which is something between $19-40 per hour.
In contrast, the countries where the cost of living is the highest aren’t able to boast of such low rates. Take American software engineers as an example. They ask up to $150/hour, while German Node.js coders’ hourly rates range between $50 to $90.
The next question that you would probably ask is about the code quality. HackerRank conducted research to determine which country would win in the Olympics, if programming were a sport competition. You’ll be surprised to find out that the United States, the home of programming stars, like Bill Gates and Dennis Ritchie, didn’t even get to the top 20. American developers showed an average result in addressing coding challenges, ranking 28th.
If your next guess was that India places in the top half, as the country with the greatest number of engineers, you’re wrong again. This country was ranked 31th in the competition. Colombia and Germany took the 45th and 14th places, respectively. The beauty of Ukraine is that the country has become a hotbed for tech talent in recent years, outscoring the aforementioned countries with the 11th place.
Node.js developers hourly rates and countries’ ranks
It’s time to mine for gems! Pay attention to Node.js developers’ skills
When searching for good Node.js engineers, one of the primary things to do is to make sure that they have necessary technical skills, background, and qualities to become valuable assets to your project. Let’s check out the skills and knowledge that you need to pay close attention to in your recruitment process.
Hard skills:
- Backend development experience using Node.js
- Experience with microservice architecture and distributed systems
- Expertise in backend development of real-time web services
- Understanding of API communications
- Familiarity with databases, such as NoSQL
- Understanding of a high scale system
Soft skills
- Experience in working with Agile developers’ teams
- Good command of English language
- Strong time management skills
Don’t forget about your hiring options
Once you’ve found a gem, it’s high time to think about how you’ll hire them. There are three common options to choose from: working with freelance Node.js developers, hiring in-house coders, or turning to a software agency for team augmentation.
Working with freelancers
Freelance engineers can be a good option if you want to cut down the development costs. However, you should take extra care when choosing freelancers, as not all of them can boast of the high levels of expertise and strong skills in Node.js application development. To find qualified workers, you may go to such websites as Toptal or UpWork.
Toptal
Toptal is a marketplace that works with only 3% of freelance engineers out of thousands that leave applications on the website. Clients can sleep well, knowing that these freelancers have years of experience and profound knowledge to handle their Node.js projects. The only things you need to do are to create project and job descriptions and be ready to review a bunch of top freelancers who want to get down to work under your supervision.
Toptal app functionality
Toptal also offers you a trial period, during which you can decide whether a coder is a good fit for your project. If not, you won’t be charged for anything and can safely keep looking further.
Upwork
When using Upwork, you make a post with the job that needs to be done and receive proposals. As a client, you can limit these proposals from certain locations, if needed. When you have a sufficient number of proposals, you can check them, interview the candidates you like, choose the best freelancers, and send them an invoice using the website. Moreover, you can find the list of top Node.js software engineers on Upwork and contact them directly.
Upwork app functionality
Hiring in-house
Hiring in-house employees can be an option when you need Node.js coders on the long-term basis. This way, it makes sense to search for someone who will share the values of your company and be entirely dedicated to your business and your project.
Like with all nice things in life, there’s always a catch. Hiring in-house workers may not be a good idea, if there’s a lack of tech talent in your area or you simply have a limited budget and don’t want to spend extra penny on taxes or employees’ sick leaves and vacations. Besides, you may waste much time, cruising for the right staff and losing money for each day of the unfilled position.
Choosing the team augmentation model
How team augmentation works
Last but not least, you may turn for help to a software development agency that has a wide pool of Node.js engineers. This option has a number of benefits: a company offers you a list of best programmers, so that you can interview them yourself and pick the most talented and qualified team players. You’ll be in charge of managing and controlling all project processes, while your software agency will tackle the rest. Employees’ salaries, taxes, equipment, or workspaces are none of your concern anymore – another huge plus.
With JatApp, for example, you can see up to 60% savings in costs compared to the Western market. You also have an option to hire our Node.js developers in-house after a year of cooperation with us. The added carrot is that you have already worked with them and therefore won’t need to spend additional time and money to hire and vet new talents.
Be ready to ask some questions during the interview (Some tech stuff below!)
True to tech, we’ve gathered some interesting interview questions you may ask your candidates to filter your talent pool.
- What are the main features of Node.js?
- Describe the Node.js web application architecture.
- How will you manage packages in your project?
- Explain what an event loop in Node.js is.
- Give a definition of middleware.
- How does Node.js help to address the issue of blocking of I/O operations?
- What is stub in Node.js?
- Does Node.js support cryptographic functionality?
- Do programmer errors differ from operational ones?
- Why does Google use a V8 engine?
- Why is WASI being implemented?
- Explain the role of assert in Node.js.
- How do you measure the time of async operations?
Lastly, vet Node.js developers like experienced software agencies
When our clients ask for assistance in recruiting top Node.js programmers, the first thing we do is ask about their project needs. Having understood the project requirements, we begin searching for ideal candidates.
To handpick true gems, we’re screening developers’ resumes and evaluating their experiences. Once we find talented developer guys, we invite them to a pre-screen interview with our human resource (HR) manager that lasts no longer than 15 minutes. During this meeting we’re asking them about their motivation, reasons why they quitted their previous job, and stuff like that. This allows us to understand whether the candidates are adequate folks and are hungry for new projects and challenges.
After this interview with an HR, we usually ask candidates to solve coding challenges and then conduct a tech interview for us to assess their level of competence. It’s important to note that in most cases we have pre-screen and tech interviews combined. Node.js developers are selling like hotcakes, and we don’t waste any minute in order not to lose top talents to competitors. We’ll provide a client with the list of candidates one week after we received their request.
Our Node.js developer vetting process
Consider hiring Node.js developers with JatApp
Whether you’re building a streaming service or a gaming app, you might need to outsource Node.js development to make your wildest dreams come true. If you follow all our recommendations from soup to nuts, chances are you’ll find great Node.js programmers, even when the demand for their services is relatively high.
With JatApp, you can rest assured that you’ll have a large number of experienced Node.js coders to choose from. Our company has access to the largest pool of tech talents in the whole Eastern Europe. Moreover, we’ve been awarded with the title of one of the top 1,000 B2B outsourcing companies in the world.
Want to cooperate with us? Don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll write back to you soon.
