Hire Angular Developers to Build Digital Experience

How to Hire Angular Developers? A Guide by our CTO

Did you know the average cost of hiring an Angular developer is $50,552? This includes management time, overall productivity loss, and the cost of hiring a recruitment agency.

That’s almost like buying an Audi S5 Sportback Premium Plus every time you hire someone!

Is it worth spending this amount of money on a single hire? We understand that the talent marketplace is changing, and hiring top Angular developers is challenging. Non-tech companies also require developers to grow their business, which adds to the already fierce competition. Since you’re reading this, I assume you’re facing the same problem.

To have the best talent to work for you, you need to come up with a strategy that you can replicate. Let’s discuss some of the off-beat ways and strategies to hire Angular developers.

Difference Between Angular & AngularJS

If you’ve already browsed through hiring portals, you must have observed how these terms are interchangeable. Whether you’re posting a job or hiring an in-house Angular developer, it is essential to understand the difference between Angular and AngularJS.

AngularJS refers to the version 1.x, whereas Angular refers to all the versions after Angular 2 and plus.

This fundamental difference in terminology is to eliminate the confusion among older versions of JavaScript-based Angular and the current TypeScript-based Angular framework, which supports advanced capabilities like building Single Page Applications (SPA). To keep consistent branding, the Angular community has specified versions 1.x into AngularJS, and the subsequent versions are known as Angular.

4 Steps to Hire Angular Developers

In my overall experience working with recruiting agencies and in-house HRs, one go-to way is screening/hiring developers through online portals. I couldn’t help but wonder if that is the only option. Absolutely not! Let’s discuss five steps to hire the best talent.

Step 1: Gather your Project Requirements

A detailed project description is a perfect bridge to connect with the ideal developer. Working out on an accurate project description will help developers in self-evaluation based on their skills, experience, and scope of work. Give information about you, your organization, the scope of work, and the project timeline for a better understanding.

Angular developers are dominantly frontend developers with a specialization in the Angular ecosystem. Yet, there are many other skills and technologies that a frontend developer requires based on the specifics of the project. Writing a detailed job post can undoubtedly be a huge help.

Gather project requirements by looking at the long-term and short-term goals. With a thoroughly defined project description in hand, you can start looking for the developers. Let’s discuss where to begin in the next step.

Step 2: Where to find Angular Developers (Online or Offline)

Depending on the developer type (freelancer, remote, etc.), hiring methods vary (online, offline, etc.). Now there’s a difference between hiring developers at the physical office and virtually. You may think that hiring an in-house Angular developer will make more sense in terms of understanding the project requirements and face-to-face discussions. But, since in-house hiring isn’t the best solution for every need, one must explore other options too– hiring dedicated Angular developers, freelancers, or extending the development teams remotely.

The best part, you’ll be able to explore and see which option works best for you. Freelance developers do their best in some instances or tasks where more than one developer isn’t required. On the other hand, extending an Angular team can help you sail your project better and faster. However, all these options have different methods of hiring, i.e., online or offline. Both of these would require a little bit of work.

Hiring Offline

When it comes to looking through offline habitats of the software community, here are the few options that have worked for us.

#1. Tech Conferences/Meetups: Conferences and meetups are a great way to get involved and be an active part of the community. You name the technology, and there are plenty of them happening near you. However, just attending these events isn’t enough. If you can get yourself enrolled as one of the speakers or sponsors, you and your organization’s visibility grows exponentially. What’s more, your chances of attracting top talent increase manifold.

#2. Coworking Spaces: Coworking spaces are one of the potential places for networking. I realized this during my last visit to New York, where a coworking space regularly organizes lunches and high teas as an initiative to get to know each other and promote their business. In our case, this has served as an excellent opportunity to get ourselves noticed and hire developers.

#3. Hackathons: These are one of the best places to keep a watch for new talent since you can see them live in action. From time to time, we’ve been hosting hackathons by partnering with local colleges, and it has proved extremely fruitful for us. 

Hiring Online

#1. Freelance Websites: Websites such as Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr are pretty helpful when you want to source talent for temporary, remote projects. However, in cases when you want to hire a full-time Angular developer, websites like Toptal works as a better option since the developers are pre-vetted.

#2. Developer Communities: Niche developer communities are an excellent platform when you want to hire developers with specific requirements; in our case, it’s Angular. Platforms such as GitHub, Reddit, and Stack Overflow work best. You can also reach out to a tech-specific newsletter that provides job postings. Apart from that, platforms like Angelist are also an excellent source to hire developers.

#3. Augmented Teams: When you’re scaling your projects and need a bunch of devs immediately, staff augmentation can come to your rescue. Tons of startups have hired extended teams at their scaling stage. Considering the tight market for in-house talent, a perfect option that can save your time and money without compromising on the work quality is- staff augmentation.  

Dedicated development teams work best in cases where

• You can’t find an expert or a developer with sound skills.
• You need to double your development team due to specific projects.
• Most of your employees are already engaged in the projects.
• You are based in a region where development rates are high.
• You have a small team, and you want to modernize your services.

Having discussed various modes of hiring, let’s jump onto how to shortlist the candidates and understand which type of team is perfect for you– remote or in-house.

Step 3: Shortlist the Candidates (In-house or Remote)

Having decided where to find the developers you need, it’s time for shortlisting them. Shortlisting of candidates should be easy if you’re already clear about your project specifications and technical requirements. However, few prerequisites for Angular developers are:

• Fluency with Git
• Core understanding of TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML & CSS
• Creating testable modules and components
• Understanding the structure of SPA
• Angular CLI
• Node Package Manager (npm)
• Typescript & Reactive extensions
• Solid understanding of Angular
• Experience with RESTul API integration

First off, set the criteria and screen the profiles accordingly.

• Technical experience

How much experience does the candidate possess in terms of technicalities of Angular technology? Are they thorough with the Angular libraries and dependencies needed for a particular project? Hands-on experience in working with Angular framework, its latest versions, and relevant project experience (web, native, and mobile apps) make it a preferable choice for hiring a candidate.

• Project management

Yes, we’re discussing hiring Angular developers, but as long as we are aiming for our project to be accomplished on time, project management is an integral part of the whole profile. Also, managing the tasks and setting their priorities should come as an inbuilt quality and role.

• Tooling expertise

Of course, with the extensive knowledge and experience about the technology, a developer should be good at analyzing tools. Judging the right set of software required for specific tasks such as project management, debugging, etc. should be an added skill.

• Portfolio background

You must check the background of anyone you are looking forward to working with. Ask for client testimonials and feedback regarding any specific expertise of them to know more about their profile authenticity.

After having set the standard criteria for the shortlisting of candidates, let’s move onto what type of team is a good option for you, before diving deep into the technical aspects of hiring in the 4th step.

Dedicated Remote Developer vs. In-house Developer?

In-house teams or remote teams? The debate is real. I’ve worked with both kinds of groups, and the differences are significant.

When you work with in-house teams, traveling is one of the major cons, primarily, if you’re based in a metro city. I remember a client from London sharing a similar problem as mine. He mentioned how some of his developers struggled with 3 hours of commute, to and fro, from the workplace. Travelling took a significant toll on the productivity of those developers. Apart from this, investment in infrastructure, administration, and operation is another burden.

Still, there are few advantages too. Your team understands the company goals, its product, and its culture the best. Plus, you have direct oversight over your outfit. But is it all worth it? Only if an in-person presence is required, you’ll have no problem in terms of cost per developer.

On the other end, dedicated remote teams release you from many headaches. Remote developers may lack face-to-face communication, but hey, there are tons of video conferencing tools available at your disposal. Plus, I’ve personally observed a 30% hike in productivity when developers are allowed to work wherever they want.