Hiring the right person is never an easy task. It’s often a time-consuming process, sometimes, with no guarantee that the developer hired will be up for the challenge. In case you identified yourself in one of the previously mentioned scenarios or already started a recruitment process, you’ll probably encounter a few obstacles in the way.
But why is hiring a React Native developer so difficult?
If you’re based in the UK or US, you’ll agree that hiring a talented React Native developer can be quite challenging. There are many freelance platforms (Upwork, Toptal, Fiverr, etc.), outsourcing companies, job search boards, and other tools that make it challenging to find the right person.
React Native is king when it comes to choosing a cross-platform tool to build a mobile app. Part of it because, with React Native, developers can build mobile applications for Android and iOS using JavaScript. And we all know that almost every developer knows something about JavaScript (React, Node.js, React Native). It turns out that this “something” may not be enough for what you need.
Conducting a recruitment process on your own is a time-consuming process. From the moment you release a job offer, your inbox can be either flooded with applicants (which is then followed by a hard part of the screening, interviews, technical assignments, etc.) or empty for weeks. The software development industry is in high demand, so if you are in a rush to release your product and you need to find someone quickly, you could use a hand from a trusted software development partner.
As there are no perfect companies, there are no flawless candidates. As you look for perfection, you might come across different personalities, experiences, and technical backgrounds. What is often called cultural fit means finding a balance between the company values, what is expected from the mentioned position, and how easy it would be for a new team member to feel onboarded. Which skill are you going to value the most? An impressive experience? A humble yet confident attitude? Or an in-depth knowledge of React Native? We believe it is a mix of these three skills, in the right doses.
Understanding your needs and acknowledging the phase your company is going through, is a great way to start. It might seem obvious, however, in such a high demand industry as software development, hiring an experienced React Native developer can be a struggle. Thus, you need to have a clear view of what your company needs to thrive and how that person is going to help you achieve that.
Let’s take a look at three typical case scenarios where you can probably link your company to:
If your company is a startup in an early stage, having no time to lose is like a mantra. Investors are usually hungry for results and you need a faster time to market to test your mobile application. With this in mind, building an MVP is an option to consider, which means that your best way out is to hire an experienced React Native developer who can boost your development.
Hiring a React Native developer can be difficult if you do not have a clear understanding of what you need both in the short and long term. Let’s say that you already have an iOS app. However, you’ve identified that the Android market has a strong potential in terms of business, and now you need to make the Android version of it. Instead of hiring an Android team, a possibility is to hire React Native developers to help you build a cross-platform mobile app. It comes up as a way of having a shared codebase for both device families and saving money in the long term, as you don’t need to have two development teams.
In case you have a web application built by your in-house development team and need to create a mobile version of it, adopting React Native can be a great option in terms of cost/benefit. Depending on your team size and allocation, if your front-end developers already have a background in React, the transition to React Native is smoother. This way, you can only extend your existing team with expert React Native developers instead of hiring a whole new team for Android or iOS.
If you don’t have a tight deadline but expect that you’ll need to develop a mobile application soon, you can always ask your developers to learn React Native. It may sound like a cost-effective way to handle the situation, especially if they already have a JavaScript background. They can learn online from Pluralsight, Codecademy, Bootcamps, or other online learning platforms. However, do not forget that usually learning a new framework has a ramp-up time, as it happens with almost all programming languages. If you’re going to build a mobile app from scratch, make sure that the lack of experience on this specific framework doesn’t compromise the outcome.
For each of these scenarios, there’s an ideal way to promptly hire your talented React Native developers while guaranteeing an ideal skill set. Searching for the right talents can be daunting, especially in an industry like software development with such high demand. But it doesn't always have to be like this. Especially if you know your options.
Hiring the right React Native developer to your team starts by knowing how to find them. To streamline this process a little, we identified your leading solutions:
This might be your first option when you think of recruiting a new team member. You can set a budget, align expectations in terms of the candidates' experience and background, create your job offers, and advertise them on job boards such as Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, Landing.jobs, Stackoverflow, etc. Here are the pros and cons of this process:
Pros:
Cons:
If you’re not that into hiring someone permanently to your team, finding a contractor or a freelancer can come up as an alternative. You can search for React Native developers on platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, or Toptal, and conduct the screening process based on the candidates' profile, projects for which they contributed directly as React Native experts, and reviews of their work.
Pros:
Cons:
On average, it takes four weeks to hire a React Native developer on a more traditional approach, like the ones mentioned previously. But it doesn’t always have to be this daunting. If you’ve never considered contacting a staff augmentation company who’s expert in software development to help you with this, you may not be aware of its advantages due to the common misconception of being a more expensive solution.
Pros:
Cons:
To partner with a software development company saves you time and money when you decide to hire a React Native developer.
Here at Imaginary Cloud we are experts in web/mobile app development and UI/UX design. Over the last decade, we have been hiring only the best developers and UX designers in Portugal. We have multiple projects for top clients worldwide, and it’s our way to guarantee the best performance and quality of the work delivered. Hiring React Native developers is not an easy mission, just as retention of those talents. We want our people to be at their best every day. This is why we have excellent working conditions with tons of space and natural light, along with competitive salaries and other benefits.
According to Glassdoor, it takes 120 candidates to make one engineering hire. Over the years, and learning from our own mistakes, our HR designed a process that ensures we can reduce our margin error in the hiring process. After releasing the job offer and spreading the word, this is how our recruitment process looks like:
Phase 1: Basic technical assessment (to ensure that the knowledge baseline that we need is there or not)
Phase 2: Interview to make sure there’s a fit with the company’s values, team, and culture.
Phase 3: Technical assessment suited to the role
Some might say that we’re picky, but we do it intentionally. We want to make sure that we’re hiring a person that shares our vision of creating digital products that improve people’s lives while being skilled at it. For this reason, when hiring a React Native developer that will later join a client’s team to build a mobile application, our specialised HR team works together with our Senior developers that conduct all the technical interviews. Our retention speaks for itself: 91% in 2019.
We’re proud of the way we work. Having in our team the best React Native developers in Portugal and delivering the best of breed digital products to top clients worldwide is rewarding. But above that, we’re grateful for knowing that our clients are happy with our performance, grow with us and recommend us to other players as they feel we’ve contributed to their success.
Hiring a React Native developer can be a struggle if you do not have a clear understanding of what you need both on a short and long term basis.
While it can be time-consuming to hire on your own or make sure a freelancer has all that takes to perform well, recurring to a software development partner can be extremely helpful when:
At Imaginary Cloud, we have the best React Native developers in Portugal. We're the #1 software development company in Portugal by The Manifest and we delivered more than 100 projects over the last ten years.
In need of React Native developers to build a mobile app or help you with an existing project?
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I'm a Digital Marketeer with a strong passion for tech, healthy food & surfski. When I'm not working on SEO you may find me paddling along the coast.
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