When I was taking my first steps in IT, no one said it would be easy. I didn’t realize how “not easy” this path is until I had to hire React Native developer. What made it tricky? Lack of preparation from my side. Poor understanding of the project’s peculiarities. Lack of understanding of the perfect candidate. Focus on the local labor market. Labor supply full of self-taught entry-level developers. Poor communication with applicants.
As a result, I was wallowing in my desperate attempts to find React Native developers.
Years later, I learned to swim. Now, the recruiting process is a nice stress-free cruise. As an experienced captain, I will gladly share my tips and tricks for hiring a React Native developer. Keep on reading to learn how to prepare for recruiting, write a job description, where to search, and more!
Set sail and here we go!
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Must-have hard & soft skills of the React Native developer
“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”
Often attributed to Albert Einstein, this quote can describe the very first stage of recruiting. Understand who you are searching for. What technology stack should the perfect candidate work with? What technologies and tools should he be familiar with? What coding skills are required? What soft skills do you expect him to have?
Understand who is your genius.
So far, let’s focus on the universal must-have skills of the React Native developer. Round out this list with skills needed to succeed with your project and proceed to the next step.
Hard skills of the React Native developer
Excellent Knowledge of JavaScript & React Native
It’s as important as obvious. When it comes to cross-platform app development, JavaScript is a “big cheese”. What goes without saying? Excellent knowledge of features and enhancements of JavaScript ES6 or newer versions. A good understanding of the React Native framework, its core components, APIs, and libraries. Knowledge of React assumptions and concepts such as Virtual DOM, JSX, and component lifecycle.
Experience in Using Application State Management Tools
Why is it needed? To enable communication and share data across components. In a nutshell. Developers can use a variety of state management tools. However, Redux is one of the most convenient and reliable. Enzyme and Hockeyapp are also in our good books 🙂
Skills in Android & iOS App Development
When you hire React Native app developer, ensure he is familiar with Objective-C, Java, Swift, and Kotlin. What for? At least to successfully convert an existing Android or iOS app to React Native.
Advanced Coding Skills
If a code is clear, future changes and improvements, actually any work with code is going to be child’s play. Don’t underestimate the importance of this skill.
A Clear Understanding of How to Integrate with External Services
It’s cool if a candidate is familiar with the integration features of third-party services (Google, Facebook, PayPal) and their APIs. It’s a key to extending the functionality of mobile applications.
Among other hard skills you can add to your list are:
- Understanding the principles of navigation.
- Debugging & testing.
- Development of special functions for mobile devices.
- Data storage & offline data caching.
- Performance optimization.
- Configuring continuous integration & continuous delivery.
Soft skills of the React Native developer
When you hire React Native developer, create a checklist of the desired soft skills. They are as important as hard skills. According to the Harris Poll survey for Express Employment Professionals, they are even more important than hard skills. 19% of surveyed companies confirmed that. 73% of companies value soft skills more than ever before.
What soft skills to look for?
Your candidate should have good communication skills and be a team player. It means he should give accurate feedback, receive constructive criticism without drama, and be positive and curious. Check out his train of thought in a stressful situation (e.g. tight deadlines). Is he a problem-solver?
The highest level is to find a perfect match for your corporative culture. It means to find a person with a similar mindset and values. It can be even more important (and harder) than finding a developer with outstanding hard skills.
When you figured out who is your perfect candidate, you can create a job description.
How to create a job description for a React Native developers position
Your key to creating a clear job description lies within your understanding of the project. The better you understand its specifics, the clearer your job description will be. Hence, the more chances that the right candidate will notice it and respond to it.
After diving into the details of the project, define project requirements for the job description. It can consist of 4 steps:
- Outlining the user flows
- Creating the graphic UI design
- Sharing specifications
- Creating job overview
Outlining the User Flows
This information will help the developer to understand the scope of the project and its challenges. His feedback, in turn, will show if your app is ready to be submitted to the App Store or Google Play. Is navigation of the app intuitive and convenient? How easy it is for the users to interact with an app? What are the benefits of an app for the users? What are its main features? These are the questions to ask to get his feedback.
How to develop the user flows? Ask questions 🙂
- What are the types of app users? Suppliers, customers, supervisors?
- What are the needs of each type of user?
- How should the registration look like? Confirmation?
- What features do the users need?
- How will the user profile look like?
- What third-party integrations are needed?
- How users will make purchases in my app?
- How will I track information about purchases, payments, delivery information?
- Will my users receive notifications? In what way?
Creating the Graphic UI design
This information should be translated into the graphic UI design. What for?
- To see the graphic animations and define potential challenges and risks
- To understand business logic and the project’s scope
- To get a better idea of the costs and timeline
Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD will come in handy, in this case.
Sharing Specifications
To enable the proper communication between UI and back-end, the developer will ask for documentation on the APIs. It includes resource descriptions, endpoints and methods, request and response samples, and parameters.
If these terms sound as complicated as “secular equilibrium” and “scintillation counter”, you better ask for help. You can book a call with experts in developing the API specifications on Upwork, Toptal, Clutch, or YouTeam. There, you will find software engineers with a back-end background or technical writers. Besides, you can ask a question on Quora or Stack Overflow. You can reach out to a software development agency to get the assistance of business analysts.
Creating Job Overview
A well-drafted job overview increases the chances of snagging the right candidates. Imagine what can happen if your hairdresser doesn’t understand what haircut you want. The better you explain, the more you will be satisfied with the result. The same happens when you hire React Native app developer. Create a detailed job overview to understand if you have to swipe left or right 🙂
A good job overview contains details of the project, specifications, and your expectations regarding the candidate’s skills. How to create it?
- Tell about your company, team, and the idea of the project. What’s your goal? Who are your potential users?
- Cover specifications of the project. What’s the technological stack? What are the requirements for UI design? Do you need any third-party integrations? What language does the team speak? Where are you located in case you hire in-house developers?
- Mention organizational moments such as the project’s duration, budget, working environment. Is the job full- or part-time? What’s your time zone?
- List the skills requirements. What experience, education, and skillset should the candidates have? Should they send a link to their portfolios? Should they provide employment references?
- Provide an overview of the user flows, back-end specifications, UI design graphics.
Where to Post React Native Developer Job Description
Let’s imagine that you decided to hire a freelancer. Where to post your flawless job description? You can consider Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, Gun.io, We work remotely, Hub Staff Talent, and Topdevelopers.co. In this article, we discuss the pros and cons of some platforms.
Searching for React Native developers on freelance platforms and job boards has its pros, of course. You get access to large bases of freelancers. On Upwork, for example, you can get 100+ applications in 24 hours. Moreover, it’s cost-effective compared to hiring in-house developers or applying to a development agency. You can see real clients’ feedback.
Still, the screening process can be time-consuming due to the high number of applications. The barriers to enter such platforms are low. It leads to a big number of laymen offering their services. It’s not always easy to detect them. Freelancers can be not as dedicated as in-house employees or web agencies. It happens that freelancers disappear halfway.
What’s the alternative to hiring a freelancer? Looking toward the development agency 🙂
How to benefit from collaboration with a development agency
When you collaborate with a development agency, you often:
- Avoid such expenses as social security and medicare taxes, equipment, paid vacations & sick days, office rent. Ok, development agencies consider these costs when forming their pricing policy. But, on average, you still pay less than if you hired an in-house employee.
- Work on a project basis. It’s not like with in-house developers whom you have to pay even if there is no work.
- Get access to a larger base of developers. You don’t limit yourself to local specialists.
- Reduce chances of hiring a newbie. Reliable development agencies value their reputation. It often results in a higher competence of their employees.
- Local in-house developers can set sky-high prices. You have a broader price range when you deal with development agencies.
Disclaimer: we talk about development agencies with a good reputation, solid history of projects, and qualified teams. Expecting these benefits from the laymen would be naive. To reduce your chances of working with amateurs, check out our guide on how to choose a vendor.
At Fulcrum, our goal is to justify the client’s trust and meet his expectations. We were carefully building a team of React Native developers to ensure that we complete the mission. You can be sure that your app will be top-notch because we always carefully select the tech stack.
Here is what we use:
Frontend
Backend
Mobile Apps
DevOps
Would like to get a glimpse behind the scenes of the work of the guys, who might develop your app? 🙂 Check out our development portfolio! Thereby, you will get a better idea of the app development process.
Want to know the React Native developers’ cost for your project? Press the button and speak to us! Let’s discuss your project!
Why hiring React Native developers in Ukraine
As mobile app development can be done from anywhere in the world, why limit yourself to one country? Abroad, you can find even more qualified specialists at more affordable prices!
Speaking of IT outsourcing, Eastern Europe has already become a hot market with qualified and affordable IT specialists. It’s a leader among other outsourcing regions with a share of 17%. Ukraine, in turn, can boast the biggest number of IT outsourcing companies. 1,001 to be precise. Here, we have a favorable climate for growing competitive tech-savvy specialists:
- A huge choice of universities, state and private academies, and courses
- Available education
- Access to study abroad & exchange programs
- Developing community that organizes workshops, conferences, hackathons, and other events
- Relatively low government intervention
- Positive tendencies to learning foreign languages
As a result, foreign clients face a reasonable value proposition. How much React Native developers cost in Ukraine? It depends. You should take into account the developer’s skill set, experience, location, the complexity of the project, deadlines. We have already written about software engineer salaries in Ukraine and worldwide. Check it out to get an overall picture. Speaking specifically about React Native developers, here’s what we have.
Table: React Native developer salary per year
| Country | Junior-level React Native developer salary per year | Senior-level React Native developer salary per year | Average React Native developer salary per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | $95,000 | $139,000 | $117,277 |
| UK | $52,000 | $119,000 | $83,000 |
| Norway | $33,000 | $115,000 | $68,000 |
| Ukraine | $18,000 | $45,600 | $70,560 |
The difference between salaries in Ukraine and the USA is huge. It doesn’t mean that Ukrainian IT specialists are less competent, though. The gap appears due to the much lower cost of living in Ukraine. That’s why startups and biggies such as Skype, Microsoft, WhatsApp, eBay entrust their R&D to Ukrainian geeks, and you should, too.
