Making your business grow is a must, otherwise you’ll hardly survive a tough competition today. When you’re running a web product, growing the business becomes even harder as you will lack workforce sooner or later. In fact, Gartner’s survey reports that a shortage of tech talent is the main roadblock to 64% of emerging technologies, ahead of cost and security issues.
Even though you need experts in such commonplace technology like React.js, finding a talent that is trustworthy and motivated to focus on a product rather than an arrogant nerd that just writes faceless lines of code is also a big challenge. The good news is that you have come to the right place to get the answer to the simple, yet important question: How to hire a React developer? The JatApp team has been providing businesses with experienced tech talents since 2015, so we confidently present to you our guide on how to hire React developers.
Please, welcome a React software engineer
If we’re getting to know who a React developer is, let’s define React.js technology. React.js is a free open-source JavaScript library for front-end development. It is good for single-page, server-rendered, and even mobile applications. In fact, JavaScript is the number one programming language in 2022, since 65.3% of surveyed software developers currently use it, while React.js is the second most popular library used by 42.62% of front-end developers.
Top JavaScript frameworks
These numbers say that React software engineers aren’t a rare beast to broadcast during National Geographic primetime. On the other hand, you have to be careful, as chances to hire a trickster are high. To filter out poorly trained and uneducated React developers, remember that a qualified React developer is expected to have such skills as:
- A strong familiarity with HTML and CSS. To craft web user interfaces, a React developer must be able to touch HTML and CSS codes without a fear that everything will crash in one click.
- An ability to work with JSX. To manage application programming interfaces (APIs) properly means a good command of JSX. In the other case, your developer is likely to make the project last much longer than you can afford.
- A fundamental understanding of JavaScript. React.js is a JavaScript library, which is why knowing nothing about how JavaScript works is a sign that your React candidate is a lousy imposter.
- Having experience of working with Git. Every software developer has to work with Git, otherwise how are they going to store and manage the code?
- Being no stranger to Node.js. Yes, Node.js is for back-end development, but knowing “what is under the hood” is critical for front-enders. In such a way, a software engineer better understands how they can write reliable code that makes both ends meet and work together properly.
React developers habitat and hourly rates
You can find React developers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, but you should be ready to pay 70$ per hour. Needless to say, these countries have the most qualified software engineers, but it does not necessarily mean that there are no other places where you can hire a reliable and experienced React developer for a lower price.
For example, Brazil is one of the growing React developers pools where you can hire one at a price of $18-20 per hour. However, you should be aware of a complicated system of legal regulations that hinders many companies from effective cooperation with Brazilian tech professionals.
In the same vein, you can easily hire an Indian developer who specializes in React.js. Despite a low salary rate around $18-20 per hour, you may find it hard to work with tech teams from India because of a cultural gap and language barrier. On top of that, the time zone difference is large enough to cause additional hurdles in communication and productive work on your web development project.
Instead, we highly recommend you hiring a React.js developer from Ukraine. To start with, Ukraine ranks first in the list of the biggest contributors to the global science & tech development, while the IT sector earns $5 billion with 187,000 tech professionals each year. We won’t lie, you cannot say that Ukrainian developers’ rates are the lowest any longer as you’ll pay $45-50 per hour.
In addition to the quality of work delivered by highly skilled professionals, you can expect that Ukrainian React developers totally share your culture, speak English at least at intermediate level, and will respond to your request with a minimum of delays. If you’re not convinced, please, read our dedicated article about why European businesses nearhsore their IT projects to Ukraine.
Of course, we cannot pretend that there is nothing else to tell about Ukrainian developers. An unprovoked military aggression by russia does affect how the Ukrainian IT sector works today. Notwithstanding this fact, the majority of Ukrainian IT companies managed to relocate to safe regions of the country to keep working at a pace they followed before the 24th of February 2022.
We’re not saying that hiring a Ukrainian React developer is risk-free, but the IT sector successfully managed to adjust to the current situation to keep working, so you can still rely on software development agencies from Ukraine. On top of that, your cooperation with Ukrainian IT companies means a valuable contribution to the local economy that needs external funding to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine who are defending not only our country but the whole civilized democratic world. Don’t be afraid to hire Ukrainian React developers and stand with Ukraine!
What a convincing React developer resume should have
Here, we would like to share an example of a React developer resume you should have your eye on. Please, check the image below.
Three ways to hire a React developer
Perfect, now you know what your ideal candidate should look like. But where do you search for those mad geniuses to shine on your web app? There are three ways to hire React developers: freelancers, in-house, and team augmentation (outsourcing). Let’s see the pros and cons of each way.
Freelancers
If you have a small task to do for your project, looking for a freelance React developer is your way to go. In other cases, we don’t really recommend you putting your trust in complete strangers. Hiring a freelancer is a gamble similar to finding a dating partner at Tinder: there’s always a chance they’re using someone else’s pics or not really into extreme sports, actually.
But if you still need a React developer to work on a small task, you can look for good freelancers at such portals as Upwork and Toptal where tech talents undergo some kind of vetting process. Still, you cannot expect a full commitment from a freelancer regardless of guarantees they give you.
In-house
Hiring an in-house React developer makes sense when you plan to have a long-term project that is going to evolve and keep expanding over time. We say so because spending time and money on recruitment, onboarding, training, sick leaves, holidays, and employee benefits should be extremely justified.
In other words, it’s just unreasonable to spend so many resources on a React developer who will work on your project for less than a year. That is why hiring in-house developers is okay when you are confident that the project requirements imply that the development process will last for long or you’ll have another project to switch your team on.
Team augmentation
Since the wallet is speaking loudly and you don’t want to fire cannons of money at hiring an in-house React developer, but you still need one for your project, outsourcing a tech expert overseas to extend your team is the most optimal solution for you. When you extend your team by hiring a React developer from a foreign IT vendor, you don’t have all that torture with the hiring process and onboarding, as a software development agency will do it for you. All you need to do is to come to an interview with candidates and decide who you will select for your project.
Moreover, you’ll spend less money. We’ve already mentioned that hourly rates for React developers do differ, while the quality of the work delivered can be the same. As a result, outsourcing a React developer is a win-win situation for you as you hire a tech talent with years of experience full-time, but you don’t dump money into overheads associated with recruiting an in-house worker.
Beyond a doubt, you can’t stay and look over the shoulder of your React developer and check whether they watch YouTube videos with funny cats and dogs instead of writing the code. A risk that some communication and trust issues can happen is always present. However, any respected outsourcing agency will do their best to make you able to manage your outsourced developer just like any other in-house employee.
How to vet your candidates
This section has a somewhat intriguing title, but the JatApp team considers vetting React developers a breeze. The reason behind this easy-going attitude is that detecting a poorly qualified React developer is a no-brainer: it’s enough to ask basic questions related to both hard and soft skills to pre-screen your React developer.
JatApp recruiters don’t bother candidates with test tasks to complete because identifying a bad developer doesn’t require this much effort. There is no need to spend long hours at this stage of recruitment. If a candidate barely knows how to code and their communication style is toxic like Johnny Depp’s marriage with Amber Heard, you’ll find it out very quickly.
That’s definitely not your best candidate
Anyway, we have our own pre-screening questions that we recommend you to ask your candidates as well:
- What frameworks do you work with? How can you assess your skills level on a scale from 0 to 10?
- How many commercial projects did you complete using React.js?
- Do you have any experience of delivering projects from start to finish?
- What kind of projects did you work with? Can you provide links to Git profile and give examples of projects that aren’t under non-disclosure agreement regulations?
- With how many team members did you usually work together?
But when it comes to a technical interview… We ask candidates a lot of questions. Once detecting a bad React developer will take a couple of basic questions to ask, finding the best one requires the opposite. Again, we won’t list all the questions we ask at the technical interview, but the following ones will give you an idea how deep you should dig and how unexpected your questions should be. The questions are the following:
- What is React? What are the advantages of using it?
- What is the difference between controlled and uncontrolled components?
- Why do we need useEffect React Hooks?
- How to re-render the view when the browser is resized?
- How to make data go back and forth between sibling components?
- What are inline conditional expressions?
- How to apply validation on props?
- How to look inside JSX?
- What is StrictMode?
- How to update the state object?
Hire your React developer with JatApp
JatApp has the largest pool of talents in Eastern Europe, so you can hire React developers according to various engagement models such as team extension, dedicated team, or if necessary, project outsourcing.
Team augmentation/extension means that you hire a React developer because you need an extra pair of hands on your project. You can manage our software developer as if it’s your in-house employee: they will always reply to your requests almost immediately.
Perhaps, you have a project, but you lack the entire development team to work on it. In this case, we can provide you with a dedicated team who will work solely on your project, while you can fully control the process.
But if you don’t want to burden yourself with project management issues, you can outsource your entire project to JatApp. Our project managers will take your project gently by the hand and walk through the entire life cycle from discovery stage to ongoing support, while you’ll be updated about any progress made.
You may not even have a clear idea of a software solution you would like to develop. Our business analysts can come up with concepts of a product that will meet your business goals and become popular with your target audience.
Hire a React developer at JatApp. Tell us about your project, and we will reach out to you as soon as possible.
