With its efficiency and simplicity, AngularJS has become the preferred framework by developers and businesses as it can create dynamic single page applications. As competition tightens in the business landscape, AngularJs has emerged as a powerful framework because of its rich and intuitive features.

Before you start hiring AngularJS developers for your team, you must first be familiar with the framework. Here are some things technical recruiters and non-tech startup founders like you should know to be able to hire the right and best developer for your project.

What is AngularJS?

AngularJS is an open-source JavaScript framework used to build dynamic single-page web applications. It allows developers to use HTML as a template language and enables them to extend attributes and work well with other libraries.

Originally developed as a support for a SaaS application, AngularJS was considered revolutionary during its conception in 2009. Developed by Google Agile Coach Miško Hevery, AngularJS was then released in 2012 as an open source library. What made the framework stand out during that time was its focus on testability and performance. Eventually, Google acquired the project due to its rapid evolution in the JavaScript ecosystem. Thus, Google currently maintains AngularJS.

To study AngularJS, developers should have previous programming knowledge in:

• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript

AngularJS key features

Since its release, AngularJS steadily grew as a preferred framework for many developers. It is one of the frameworks that are based on the MVC (Model View Controller) methodology, thus the simple architecture and fewer codes.

AngularJS gained popularity because of its unique features which, in turn, have made it possible for developers to easily build mobile and web applications. These features are:

• Two-way data-binding - This refers to the synchronisation between the model and the view from the MVC model. It is a prominent feature of AngularJS as it helps developers save a lot of time coding. With data-binding in AngularJS, manipulating, traversing, and listening in the code base to the Document Object Model (DOM) are reduced so that developers can focus more on the app.

• Dependency injection - Dependency is any object or service that can be used, while an injection is the passing of a dependency to a client that would use it. When put together, dependency injection refers to the process where an object supplies the dependencies of another object. It’s an important part of AngularJS as it allows developers to ask for dependencies rather than creating their own.

• Ready for use templates - Its ready-to-use templates enable users with little programming skills to create great apps. This process involves the browser analysing and putting templates into the DOM and changing it to an AngularJS compiler. The framework goes through these templates to get directives which are the rendering instructions.

• Testing feature - AngularJS already has a testing feature to easily test AngularJS applications.

With these essential features, here are some additional pros of AngularJS apps:

• Time-efficient - Compared to other frameworks, AngularJS can complete projects faster by dividing the application into a number of MVC components. After that, no additional coding is needed as the framework already takes over.

• Easy to learn - To start, simply include attributes into the HTML and the application will be complete in just minutes.

• Data binding is also easy - AngularJS allows developers to see the result as they type the code.

• A declarative expression of UI - With AngularJS, a UI is fully structured thus it is easy to understand and manipulate. For designers, they can learn markups even if they don’t know much about development. The framework’s declarative expression of the UI makes it easier to understand for a team working on a project.

• Affordable - Since AngularJS is an open source framework, developers can create custom mobile and web applications at lower costs.

AngularJS vs JavaScript

While AngularJS may be a JavaScript framework, there are still differences between the two. Here are some differences for you to get familiar with the framework’s technicalities and help you hire developers better.

Note: The two are similar in that their expressions can contain variables, operators, and literals.

What’s new with the latest version?

Before you start posting on online job boards and hiring AngularJS developers, here’s a quick update about its latest version and the framework’s current state.

Earlier this year, the team behind AngularJS developed the latest update, version 1.7.x, which presented a couple of bug fixes. The Angular Team also announced that this will be the framework’s last minor release.

The team already discontinued developing new features and instead, committed to a Long Term Support that started last July 1. This means that AngularJS will still run and have support for the next three years. According to the team’s blog, they will fix bugs only if there is a security flaw found, if a major browser update causes the current version to stop working, or if a jQuery library update causes the current version to stop working.

For those still using AngularJS, as early as now, it is recommended to start migrating to Angular, the project’s newest generation. It is a powerful platform for creating applications, and since it’s a complete rewrite from the same team, there’s not much difference between the two frameworks. Your AngularJS team will have no problem adapting.

What to look for in AngularJS Developers

Now that you have a quick background on the framework, what qualifications should you look for when hiring AngularJs developers?

In technical requirements, your ideal AngularJS developer should have the following technical expertise:

• Solid background and experience in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS

• Skilled in JavaScript frameworks with JavaScript-based build tools such as Bower, Grunt, and Gulp

• Knows CSS precompilers like Sass and LESS

• Knowledgeable in one or more frameworks or libraries such as Bootstrap and jQuery

• Familiar with the AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript XML) technique

Note: These requirements can change depending on your applications’ technical requirements. Take note that these are just some essential skills an AngularJS developer should have.

Aside from these technical skills, here are some soft skills an ideal AngularJS developer should possess:

• Strong communication skills - As with any developer, communication skills are important to foster good collaboration within your team. Since an AngularJS developer is essentially a front-end developer, he or she must effectively communicate with the back-end developer and the rest of the team for the project to run smoothly.

• Good organisation - An organised AngularJS developer not only writes clean and easy to understand code but also manages his or her time with the tasks well. He/She is an efficient worker and would prove to be a good addition to your team.

• Deep analytical and problem-solving skills - What most people think is that programmers or developers just need to memorise and understand tech languages, frameworks, and libraries to come up with good applications. In reality, developers spend most of their time solving complex problems in order to apply a feature and make the application run. Look for AngularJS developers who demonstrate an open mind to solving problems.

Related Article: A non-techie’s guide to hiring WordPress developers

Just a few more tips...

Prepare good interview questions

Differentiating someone who is proficient with someone who is a master with what they do isn’t easy. To know who are the experts in their field, be sure to prepare questions that prove their skill, knowledge, and experience. Keep it relevant to your project requirements and avoid trivia questions or brain teasers.

Here are some sample questions you can try asking regarding the framework:

• “What are the ways your application can communicate between modules using the framework’s core functionality?”

• “What are directives? Can you discuss each of the different AngularJS directives?”

• “How’s your experience with e2e testing? Can you explain how e2e testing works in AngularJS?”

Ask if they follow the best practices

As with any tech language and framework, best practices help maintain software quality. During your interview process, ask them how they would apply certain features and what the performance effects would be. Highly-skilled developers are experienced with coming up with solutions. Also, get to know what their approach with managing or delegating tasks are. This gives candidates an opportunity to showcase their expertise and is a great way for you to brainstorm approaches.

Check for common mistakes

If you could give technical tests to your candidates, keep an eye on common mistakes. These mistakes can range from misunderstanding and overusing resolves to a simple one such as not putting a dot in the ng-model. These common errors are well-known in the AngularJS community so your candidate has no excuse to commit them. Great AngularJS developers should have no problem with committing these simple errors, especially if they follow good practices. If you see candidates commit these, you may want to rethink about their application.

Ready to hire your AngularJS developer or team?

Scouting tech talent is now easier through online job portals. You have the option to hire local developers, freelancers, or even offshore developers. Each has its own pros and cons, but what suits you best is what your business and project need.

Hiring locally gives you the freedom to hire within your city or state. Your developer can report to your office every day, and collaborate with you on the project. You can easily monitor your developer’s progress each day. However, what most businesses find difficult with hiring locally are the time and effort it takes to find one. This is due to the fact that tech talent shortage is still a major issue (especially in countries like the UK and the US) and majority of great developers are already employed.

This gives you the option to hire freelancers. They are independent developers who either work remotely and/or per project basis. This means they may not go to your office all the time, or never at all, and that their job is done once they complete their project or the task assigned. Freelancers are good for short-term projects or part-time work but in terms of quality, and deadlines, you might encounter some mediocre developers.

This leaves you with another option and that is to go beyond shores. Hiring AngularJS developers offshore may not have been your first choice but it is an effective and cost-efficient alternative to local hiring. Offshoring has long been a strategic action by many popular tech companies and enterprises to easily and quickly hire tech talents, reduce risks and liabilities, and effectively manage budget. With a reliable IT offshore partner, managing your offshore developer team is safer, secure, and hassle-free.

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