Hire top Front End developers to grow your startup

A guide to hiring front-end developers for your startup in 2023

Our comprehensive guide to finding talented front-end developers, skills to look for, and how to interview potential candidates for your startup.

Are you hiring a front-end developer for your startup?

Front-end developers are essential to developing the UI for your company and one of the most in-demand roles on Wellfound. Front-end engineers focus on creating websites and applications that allow customers to interact with your website or app. Generally speaking, the front-end engineer builds what the customer will see.

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Levels and skillsets of front-end developers

What skills to look for when hiring a front-end developer

A front-end developer is a skilled software engineer whose job responsibilities include building and managing the front-end (client-facing) development process. A front-end developer’s work supports a development team and enables users to access and interact with websites and mobile applications. Front-end developers are typically most familiar with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, and jQuery.

Determine the right level of experience

‍Levels of experience vary greatly for front-end engineers from junior (0-1 years experience) to middle or senior (3-5+ years experience) engineers. Hire for the skill level your startup needs based on current resourcing.  When hiring front-end developers, it’s often beneficial to hire someone with tech lead experience who is willing to fill gaps as needed. You may also find rising talent or junior engineers from coding boot camps focused on front-end development. As a front-end engineer, you’re also looking for candidates who have a keen eye for detail, experience in development and are interested in the user experience.

HTML and CSS

‍The foundation of your site or app is built with HTML. CSS is used to create layouts, including the color, fonts, and style. Strong front-end engineering talent has experience with HTML and CSS and are comfortable coding in both languages.

JavaScript and jQuery

‍To add interactive features to your site or app (audio, video, games, etc.) you’ll need a front-end engineer with JavaScript experience. jQuery is a library or collection of plugins and extensions the front-end engineer can leverage when programming. Be on the lookout for JavaScript and jQuery experience on front-end developer candidate applications.

Front-end Frameworks

‍Frameworks are tools that provide components aimed to customize and speed up development. The most popular front-end framework for front-end engineers is typically React. Note: engineers may also have familiarity with Angular and Vue.js as additional frameworks which can be good transferable experience.

The most popular front-end frameworks

When looking to hire a front-end engineer, the most common codebases are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript/jQuery. Familiarity with front-end frameworks, for example, React, Angular, and Vue.js, are essential when hiring a front-end developer. In addition, a front-end developer with expertise in SEO and UI is beneficial to hire for your startup.

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Recruiting front-end developers on Wellfound

Reach and recruit front-end developers

Companies can always post a front-end engineer job and review applicants on Wellfound for free. When posting a job for front-end engineers, learn how to write a job posting that will attract the right engineering talent.

• Add related fields: title, location, skills, and more. Relevant fields help your job post show up in the candidate’s job searches. Include “front-end” in the job description for the languages you are hiring for.
• Fill out a job posting to describe your company, role, and ideal candidate. All Wellfound job postings have a free-form section to explain more about the company and specific roles. A few suggestions to include are:

1. Company name
2. Title
3. Main responsibilities
4. Programming languages
5. Qualifications for front-end developers
6. Preferred skills for front-end developers

• Set up your company profile. A candidate will usually first click on their company profile to learn more when evaluating a company’s job post. Make sure your company profile is up to date with all sections filled out — candidates rely on this to inform their job search!

Source front-end developers

On Wellfound, you can also find candidates by sourcing for them — meaning, instead of posting a job and waiting for candidates to apply, you can find potential candidates and pitch your opportunity directly to them.

Candidates on Wellfound are specifically interested in joining a startup. With Source, we’ll tell you information including which candidates are actively looking for a job, what skills they have, their ideal salary, and more.

When sourcing for front-end developers on Wellfound, we suggest starting your search with the following:

• Role: Start your search by filtering for those with a current or previous “front-end engineer” or “front-end developer” title. This will filter for candidates with matching titles, to begin with.
• Skills: Add specific languages and technologies you’re looking for experience in. Your search will depend on what technologies your codebase is in.
• Location: Filter for candidates in a specific location or based on remote preferences (whether they’re only open to remote, only open to in-office, or both). If you’re looking for remote developers, you can also search for remote candidates in specific time zones.
• Experience: This is where you can clarify the level of experience you’re looking for. If you’re open to multiple levels, you can always leave this filter open to allow a wider range of candidates to show up.
  

From there, you’ll see different lists appear based on whether they are passive candidates (open to interviews, but not actively looking), active candidates (actively looking and ready to interview), or curated candidates (ready to interview and have been vetted and recommended by our team).

Front-end developer communities, networks, and meetups

Here’s a list of a few front-end communities you can get in touch with to connect with front-end developer talent:

Communities

• WeLearnJS Slack

• Kevin Powell Community

Discord Channels

• Front End Developers
• Learn.js
• Reactiflux
• Emberjs

• VueLand

Events & Hackathons

• Dev.Events: Front-End Developer Conferences

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How to set up a hiring process for front-end developers:

Front-end engineer hiring funnel

• Initial Phone Screen: Look out for a candidate's problem-solving skills, excitement for the role, and culture fit in the product and company. Evaluate if the candidate has a Github profile or other online portfolio to showcase website or app experience and past projects.
• Hiring Manager Call: Hiring managers should press further into past front-end experiences, engineering interests and motivations, and type of work style. Focus on the culture fit. Does the candidate have the soft skills needed for the role?
• Technical Interview: There are multiple ways to test a candidate's coding abilities for technical interviews — most commonly, companies will include either a coding test or a project-based exercise.

1. For coding tests, startups have used platforms including TopCoder and CoderPad. Note: coding assessments becoming increasingly outdated, as they can often be limited to only certain styles of work.
2. For front-end developers, the technical interview includes questions about the candidate's understanding of front-end engineering programs. A hiring manager may also evaluate how the candidate solves problems and ask questions about previous front-end projects.

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Frontend developer interview questions

• Give an example of a project you have worked on and the technologies involved. How did you make these choices?
• Tell me about a time you worked in a pair programming setting.
• What is the use of meta tags in HTML?
• What is Node.js? What is React.js?
• What is npm used for?

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Front-end developer salaries

Determine a competitive salary you can offer front-end candidates by comparing market data for other postings. Explore levels.fyi, to understand the ranges of market salaries. Leverage Wellfound's salary tool to review your offer for front-end developers stacks up against other jobs on our platform.

If you can’t meet a competitive salary and still want to hire top engineering talent, double down on the benefits. Are there unique company benefits? Is there equity, stock options, or other compensation you can provide? Discuss with candidates the additional benefits beyond salary during the negotiation and interview process.

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Find front-end developers from around the world

We’ve reviewed how to determine the type of front-end engineer to hire, how to find front-end developers for your team, and how to set up your hiring process — now you’re ready to start looking 👀 Post your job on Wellfound and start sourcing top front end developers from around the world today.