Hire React Native Developers With STARNAVI to Create Your Mobile App

React Native developers' skills depend on their specialization. Front-end engineers' expertise is built on technologies for creating a responsive, efficient, and concise UI. Full-stack React Native developers' expertise encompasses skills for building the front-end and back-end parts of an application; the number of required skills increases proportionally.

React Native Front-End Developer's Skill Set

For a front-end engineer, an understanding of the React Native framework is crucial. To master the framework, one needs a solid knowledge of JavaScript since it's the framework's programming language. The more framework component libraries a React Native app developer has mastered, the more UI elements and features an engineer can implement to meet the app's users' expectations. Since React Native is based on React.js, knowledge of the latter is essential for building cross-platform mobile applications.

The knowledge of HTML and CSS is recommended for a React Native programmer, though the framework doesn't use these technologies. (As a markup language, JSX is used instead. Styling is made by assigning properties to components – the basic UI elements). However, to understand the React Native approach to organizing content, a developer needs at least a basic understanding of HTML and CSS.

There are some other tools vital for building a mobile application's front-end:

• Redux – allows sharing states (objects containing data) and tracing its transformations;

• Jest – a testing tool for JavaScript;

• ESlint – a library that helps follow the project's coding standards and detect bugs.

One can create a cross-platform mobile application while not being an expert in languages native to mobile platforms (Kotlin or Java for Android and Swift or Objective-C for iOS). However, a project may need to add native features to the applications, or you may want to rebuild your existing application on React Native. For such cases, you'll need a developer skilled in languages native to Android or iOS. If you decide to find React Native developers with advanced backgrounds, it may be more challenging. Consider contacting STARNAVI for hiring developers with expanded skill sets on demand.

React Native Front-End Developer's Skill Set

A full-stack developer is responsible for a database layer of the project, apart from building the interface and user-targeted functionality. Hence, this kind of engineer needs solid expertise in technologies for building the connection between an application and the server. The list of technologies a developer should master may include any technology suitable for back-end, for example:

• Node.js;

• Laravel;

• Django;

• Ruby on Rails.

The most logical solution is Node.js since it's written in JavaScript. Your project may need serverless API. Then, your list of requirements for a developer may include such tools as AWS Lambda, Redis, or Firebase.

Statista states that in 2021, 38% of developers used React Native worldwide. In 2022, there were 26.9 million developers globally. The rough estimation lets us assume that about 10.2 million software engineers are skilled in React Native. It may seem easy to reach out to React Native developers for hire. On the one side, it's true. The framework is popular. The learning curve is comfortable since the framework and many of its libraries are written in Java, another widely used programming language. On the other hand, contacting a developer is just the first step of the challenging hiring process. To succeed, one has to focus on some of the vital issues:

• The goal. Who do you want to see as your new team member, and what are the engineer's tasks? Try to estimate today's needs and put things into perspective. What are the expected terms of collaboration? Keep in mind that your project will need maintenance. Besides, you may want to scale it up on the heels of application deployment. 

• The requirements. What does the list of developers' skills contain? Which skills are obligatory and optional? Your list should include hard and soft skills. The latter is as important as the former since you'd prefer to see your team productive and enthusiastic.

• The region. What destination are you going to hire from? Will it be onshore, nearshore, or offshore? Pay rates differ considerably, with the highest annual salary in the U.S. ($125,000), the lowest in India (€10,757), and the average in Ukraine ($48,000). You can adjust your budget to the global market opportunities and invest more in product promotion or scaling up your business by hiring offshore.

• The budget. You need a clear vision of the payment model for collaboration with a React Native developer. Are you inclined to pay hourly, bi-weekly, or monthly? What is your vision of a beneficial package? Remember that salaries and bonuses matching the market's trends increase new teammates' retention levels.

You can start the search with answers to the mentioned questions in mind. The conventional sequence of steps is as follows:

• search through freelance platforms, job sites, job marketplaces, boards, and social media;

• CVs screening;

• vetting (developer's skills assessment);

• signing contracts and NDAs;

• onboarding.

If you feel that the process is challenging and cumbersome, consider contacting STARNAVI. Our team of recruiters, HR professionals, and senior developers provide your project with services tailored to your needs at every stage of the hiring procedure.

In 2021, there were 88,3 billion mobile application downloads worldwide. People use mobile apps. People love apps. Today, nearly half of the small companies have mobile apps. The giants have them by default. In search of the best technology for building and maintaining a mobile app, household brands choose React Native: Facebook, Skype, Airbnb, Instagram, and many others.

JS Legacy as an Advantage

React Native is a versatile framework. It’s easy to use since it’s backed up by such an extremely popular programming language as JavaScript. The learning curve for JavaScript is relatively flat (compared to Java or Objective-C, for example).

Suppose you have a JS developer on your team. In that case, especially if a programmer has experience with React.js, your team already has the potential to build a software product on React Native. Choose Node.js or Express for the application back-end – and you can base the whole project on JavaScript.

You’ll hire a dedicated React Native developer in no time since the JS community is one of the biggest throughout the IT industry. In 2021, JavaScript got the status of the most widely used programming language, with a 65% fraction of fans.

JS Legacy as an Advantage

What looked like a piece of science fiction in 2015, when React Native was released, today is a common practice. With React Native, one can build an application compatible with Android and iOS. The technology yields a bunch of benefits:

• you don’t need two teams to build an app for two mobile platforms; one is enough;

• the project is more manageable;

• experts estimate that building a cross-platform application is 30% cheaper than two native ones (developed for two particular operational systems).

Most importantly, the cross-platform approach doesn’t make you compromise the quality of the user’s experience. A cross-platform app is still customised, responsive, and performs well. Moreover, it looks native: the users see the UI elements built according to the specific platform’s design trends. Add to this the large variety of libraries that help developers comprise an application from ready-to-use components – and the picture of React Native’s strengths will become well-rounded. That’s why companies want to hire a React Native developer – a professional who, as a part of a dedicated team, can help your brand conquer the market.

You can ask two groups of questions to find out if a candidate is a good fit for your project. The first group consists of technical questions focusing on React Native:

• its opportunities;

• peculiarities from other technologies;

• challenges one may face while applying this framework to building applications.

The second group of questions is helpful for the candidate’s soft skills assessment, including an understanding of the engineer’s motivation, work ethic, and communication style.

Technical Questions for a React Native Developer

The questions' complexity will vary depending on the seniority level. The simplest questions are appropriate for a junior developer, and you can start with the topic of the differences between React Native and React.js since these technologies are closely related yet serve different tasks:

• What are React Native and React.js used for?

• Do they use the same syntax?

• What are the differences between these technologies' routing (navigating) mechanisms?

• Do they both use HTML tags?

• How do React Native and React.js differentiate in rendering code?

You can ask a few questions about React Native itself. For example, you may ask a candidate what kinds of threads the framework uses if default props are available or what a state is and what it’s used for.

As for middle to senior developers, it makes sense to engage the senior developer’s expertise for skills assessment. It will be hard to get an impression of a candidate’s competency by using the standard questions and matching them with answers prepared in advance. The reason is that often a task has more than one solution, and an interviewer's mission is to evaluate the candidate’s train of thought rather than the precise answer. In STARNAVI, we engage senior developers for candidates’ tech expertise examination to get an unbiased and multifaceted estimation. Questioning is one of the steps in vetting. The others are live coding sessions and code reviews.

Technical Questions for a React Native Developer

Is a candidate a perfect match for your team’s culture code? If yes, you’ll benefit from productive collaboration. Otherwise, there will be a potential for tension within a team with consequences like missed deadlines and a decline in productivity and motivation. STARNAVI’s advice is to build the assessment on three pillars:

• communication skills;

• motivation;

• work ethic.

You can easily reveal the candidate’s soft skills by appealing to the engineer’s experiences from previous projects. For example, if you’d like to know how a candidate deals with negative feedback, you may ask how a developer handled such situations in the past. If you’re not inclined to invest your time in compiling lists of questions and questioning a candidate, consider delegating this step of vetting to a reliable staffing partner.

React Native developer creates cross-platform mobile applications – apps that can be run on Android and iOS. For cross-platform app development, a programmer uses React Native – the framework presented by Facebook in 2015 as a tool that made possible the creation of the application for two mobile platforms with a single code base. The alternative is native app development: you create two teams for two versions of an application. As a result, your expenditures increase, and a project needs more time to market.

When you hire React Native app developers, you enrich your team with new opportunities. A developer skilled in React Native can build a mobile application using a single framework and some third-party libraries and tools. Due to the vast variety of components and libraries – pre-built pieces of code – your developer writes and debugs code fast. It's comparatively easy to find a developer with the required skills since the framework is widespread and the learning curve is comfortable: JavaScript proficiency is a solid base for mastering React Native.

Front-End React Native Developer's Tasks

A front-end React Native developer builds the presentational part of the project, including each interface element. A programmer uses React Native, React.js (a library written in JavaScript), and some external tools for testing and debugging an application. A developer either creates an app from scratch or adds functional blocks and features to an existing software product. One of the possible tasks is to migrate a native application, i.e., written for a particular mobile platform, to React Native. To deal with this task, a developer needs knowledge of the programming languages native to a particular platform. These are Kotlin and Java for Android and Objective-C and Swift for iOS.

Full-Stack React Native Developer's Tasks

A full-stack React Native specialist handles both parts of an application: front-end and back-end. Consequently, the suite of tools that a developer uses is more extensive. It includes technologies for organizing data exchange between an application and a server and building APIs. The most popular frameworks used by React Native developers for dealing with the back-end layer are Node.js, Django, Express.js, Ruby on Rails, and Firebase.

STARNAVI provides remote teams with developers who correspond with job requirements and the company's culture code. We know that matching is a key: the more a candidate's skill set meets the team's expectations, the more deliverables a team will achieve within shorter deadlines. That's why we build vetting on solid ground. Our assessment of candidates' skills and personal strengths is goal-oriented, concise, and unbiased. We entrust the vetting of middle and senior developers to senior engineers with rich professional backgrounds. Vetting includes:

• skills pre-screening during an interview;

• take-home assignments;

• tech interview (may consist of code review or live coding session).

We offer our client an in-person meeting with a developer if we see the match. You won't spend any minute on communication with an engineer who is far from your team's needs and expectations. Vetting in STARNAVI focuses on three groups of criteria:

• tech skills;

• soft skills (communication, time management, self-education, work ethic, personal features);

• level of English.

Developers presented to our clients as potential fits meet all three types of requirements.

We hire developers for remote work; it's a crucial part of our policy. From the very start of STARNAVI as an outsourcing company and, later, a staffing agency, we've worked remotely – not because it's a trend but because it's beneficial. Today, we can hire a React Native freelancer or build a dedicated team of remote engineers ready to put all their efforts into creating outstanding projects.

We know that the IT industry demands staying up-to-date with new technologies and approaches. While searching for talented developers, we place a bet on engineers eager to deepen their expertise. We're ready to help our developers at every stage of the hiring process, including when a programmer works on your project. We provide our developers with mentorship for easier onboarding and high productivity. A developer can ask STARNAVI's colleagues for advice or support at any time, and we'll be happy to help.

The average global annual salary of React Native developers lies within a range between $10,723 and $157,300 (the corresponding hourly rate range is $5 – 93). The considerable distance between the two extremes is well-based and can be explained easily. How much it costs to hire React Native app developers depends on several factors, including the project’s peculiarities and requirements for developers. The destination – onshore, nearshore, or offshore – is crucial for the project’s budget. Let’s see how the React Native developer’s salary varies depending on seniority and destination (annual income, $):

As we can see, Eastern Europe’s pay rate is the lowest. If we take a closer look at the region, we’ll find out that the salary expectations of developers from Ukraine are the lowest (hourly pay rate):

• Bulgaria – $52;

• Poland – $53;

• Romania – $49;

• Ukraine – $47.

Hiring a React Native developer in Ukraine looks reasonable. Moreover, by doing this, you don’t compromise the quality of expertise. In 2021, there were 285,000 IT professionals in the country. In February 2022, the Ukrainian IT industry reached the top level of services export for recent years with a figure of $839 million. Despite the military invasion, developers in Ukraine are on their mission to contribute to their clients’ projects: more than half of companies (52%) retained 100% of their clients, and 32% of companies saved relationships with 90-99% of their clients.

With a trustworthy staffing partner, you’ll find a React Native freelancer in no time. In STARNAVI, we’re starting to search as soon as we have a list of requirements. It’s up to you to choose the collaboration forms and terms. We’ll help in case you need an engineer to add some features to your application, or you’re going to build a software product from scratch. You can pay for the developers’ time or the result. Contact the STARNAVI team to map your budget based on specific project information.