How to Hire Front-End Developers in Poland

The development of viable and effective applications is impossible without a well-built and catchy front-end layer. A properly created and innovative UI/UX design can help companies establish their own identities and emphasize the uniqueness of their products. As a result, they can easily attract their target audience, attain a stronger market position, and generate the highest revenues.

For building applications with a high-quality UI/UX design, businesses need front-end developers. Though, not every front-end developer can meet all the business requirements successfully. Their performance depends on many factors, including working experience, knowledge in their respective areas, and organization of a working process.

For many companies choosing the right front-end developer can be a challenging experience. In this article, we’ve gathered the most essential tips that will help you to hire highly-qualified front-end developers that would suit well your application development projects. o gain further insights into IT salaries and the talent pool in Poland, check out this report.

The Main Skills to Look for in a Front-End Developer

When hiring front-end developers you should clearly understand their responsibilities and be aware of the frameworks and tools they use in their work. Here is a list of their main duties and the tools they implement to create sound applications’ front-end layers.

• Creation of an application layout

Application layout includes a proper display of application content to end-users with some styling elements. For this, front-end developers use two programming languages. HTML that tells a browser how to structure a web page and CSS for adding some style to the web-pages. HTML and CSS are the two basic languages front-end developers can’t work without.

• Implementation of animations, user interactions, and other moving elements

HTML and CSS work great for static web-page elements. Though, to add a web page some movement, front-end developers should know how to code in JavaScript. JavaScript is a programming language that makes web pages more interactive and, therefore, more attractive for the end-users.

It includes moving menus, embedded video players, pop-ups, animations, interactive maps, and many others. This way, end-users visiting a web-site can manipulate some web page elements, send requests, and receive appropriate responses real quick.

• Writing a front-end code

Front-end developers have to master their HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills all the time. They should always try to make their codes as clean and lean as possible so that the codes could be reused for building other applications later or shared with other front-end developers. This practice significantly speeds up and alleviates the application building process.

• Application optimization and scalability

For great application performance, front-end developers have to monitor how their codes and app systems function. For example, that application doesn’t crash or has no major errors, starts and works quickly, has optimal design, and many other properties.

Another important aspect is application scalability. It means that an app has the potential to grow and handle more operations without any delays. For this, front-end developers have to track their apps’ systems and use the right tools for their development.

• Ability to work in a team

Front-end developers have to possess great communicative and collaborative skills. They should know how to work effectively with other members of their team as well as be able to explain to their customers their work and suggest the best features for the developed apps.

Best Practices for Front-End Developers

For building robust applications with great usability and good-looking design, front-end developers implement the best front-end development practices. While keeping application quality high they help to speed up and facilitate the front-end development process. Let’s have a look at them in more detail.

• Use of frameworks

For quick and errorless application development, front-end developers use a set of frameworks. They provide developers with standard changeable code frames that they can modify and add the needed functionality. This way, front-end developers can build even the most complex and large applications using architectural modules in the short term.

The most widely-used frameworks include Backbone.js, jQuery, AngularJS, React.js, Vue.js, Bootstrap, and many others. For example, using Angular in their development allows front-end developers to significantly increase their productivity and create outstanding digital solutions with the latest features.

• Use of AJAX

AJAX is a set of front-end development techniques that allows the client-side to send asynchronous requests to the server. This makes web applications’ responses much faster and their work much smoother. It means that when an end-user sends some requests, the application interprets and updates the results so fast that a user doesn’t even notice the huge work done off-screen.

• Responsive design

Responsive design is a web technology that allows running web applications on any device without any design flaws. This implies that a web page will render on various devices, matching their window or screen sizes. This technology turns web applications into versatile solutions that can reach broader audiences while providing their users with a top-notch app experience.

• Test-driven development

In test-driven development coding, testing, and design are performed in conjunction along the development process. This way, front-end developers avoid major and functionality blocking errors and can better match the development results to the project requirements.

For providing effective test-driven development, front-end developers should know how to implement various tools, such as integrated development environments (IDEs) and programs for automated testing.

• Version control systems

Another tool that front-end developers should know how to make use of is version control systems (VCS). This program helps to track release versions of applications, ensuring that front-end developers have the right app version for the release. It also helps to control and eliminate errors that appear during the development process. Some of the most popular VCSs are Git, SVN, Visual Studio Team Services, and others.

• Improved security 

Security is one of the key factors of effective app work. Therefore, front-end web developers should know how to empower their digital solutions with security features. The most common practices are to use SSL certificates and HTTPS protocols. These technologies allow a browser to safely connect to a web server, preventing any data leaks and losses.

How Can You Evaluate a Good Front-End Developer?

Before hiring a front-end developer, businesses should examine and evaluate their development projects. This will help them to understand how qualified their front-end developers should be to meet all the project requirements and accomplish them successfully.

Companies can hire junior, middle, or senior front-end developers.

• Junior front-end developers

Junior front-end developers are the starters in software development. Usually, juniors know the basics, including HTML, CSS, some JavaScript, and one framework. One of the main junior advantages is that they are the cheapest to hire.

Though they might have little development practice, they usually have enough qualifications to build simple applications. For example, it could be a landing page or some widely-used functionality. Also, junior developers work great in teams as they take up all the development routines from the middle and senior developers.

• Middle front-end developers

Middle front-end developers have all the basics of a junior and one or two development frameworks. Their working experience is 3+ years and they occupy the medium-price segment on the front-end development market.

Middle front-end developers understand the project requirements well and can make independent development decisions.

Middles work in teams or go freelance, though, they can stall with complex projects.

• Senior developers 

Senior developers are the most expensive ones with 5+ years of experience. They can build powerful and effective apps that match the business logic perfectly.

Before starting application development seniors examine business aims and estimate budget limitations. They do this to choose the development tools and technologies that suit best for a particular project. Moreover, seniors can suggest you the most optimal ways on how to solve emerging problems and explain which functionality to choose for building your app.

Senior developers suit well for large and complicated projects, often with long development terms such as complex business and enterprise applications and the apps the tools but justify their choice of these tools.

What are the Questions to Ask When You Want to Hire Front-End Developers?

As a company knows its business application requirements well, it’s time to choose the most suitable front-end developers. Here is a list of questions that could help businesses to hire the top front-end developers:

• What is your development background? How many projects have you worked on? What were your responsibilities?

This will help you understand an employee’s working experience and how diverse their knowledge of front-end development is.

• Which are your favorite development tools and why? Which frameworks do you like to work with? Do you have any tools that you don’t like using and why?

Asking these questions will give you a clue about the tools and technologies an employee can apply when working on your project.

• What are the most common front-end development mistakes you encounter during app development projects? How would you solve these issues?

The answers to these questions will help you to understand how creative a front-developer is in their work and how well they know the front-end development practices.

• What tools do you use for code testing? Why have you chosen these ones?

Code testing is an essential part of front-end development. An employee should not only know what tools to choose but also justify their choice.

• How do you improve your front-end developer skills? 

This question reveals how much an employee is motivated. Those front-end developers who improve their skills by reading books or attending courses will be the most engaged in your development project.

• Is it easier for you to work on your own or in a team and why?

This will help you understand how sociable and communicative an employee is. Working in a team is essential for software engineers, they can solve their issues faster and make fewer coding mistakes if they ask questions.

Conclusion

The front-end layer is an essential part of any application. It facilitates user interaction with an app, increasing the app’s utility and enhancing the user experience. The popularity of an app and, as a result, of a brand totally depends on the front-end layer. Therefore, companies should carefully choose their front-end development specialists.

For this, companies can run job interviews, ensuring that the potential employees are able to meet all the project requirements and provide the best front-end development services to their clients.