Hire the Top 3% of Freelance Angular Developers

Soaring Web Development Necessitates the Need for High-caliber Angular Engineers

The web design services market, encompassing the design and coding of websites, has reached a value of $58.4 billion in the US as of 2023—increasing much faster than the overall technology sector. Web developers in particular face the highest demand: Their projected growth rate through 2031 is 30% (compared to an average occupation growth rate of 5%). If you’re in the business of front-end development, chances are you’ve heard of Angular. The JavaScript framework is a common choice for single-page applications—it has remained in the top five most used web frameworks for multiple years in a row—making Angular developers highly desirable too.

Nowadays, many web developers start by learning front-end frameworks, which means that Angular engineers possess varying levels of experience. As a result, searching for Angular developers for hire can be challenging, and you must take care in selecting the right engineer for your company.

Angular expertise is rooted in a deep knowledge of JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, and other front-end technologies. The job description tips, interview questions, and required skill proficiencies outlined in this guide will help you pinpoint remarkable Angular engineers who will make your website and business thrive.

What attributes distinguish quality Angular Developers from others?

When determining the skills required of your Angular developer, you may wonder “What does an Angular developer do?” Angular developers work on all aspects of front-end development and should be adept in the following areas:

• UI/UX – Implementing new features and interactive functionalities is one of the most time-intensive aspects of a front-end engineer’s job. It involves close collaboration with designers and project managers to negotiate the most important features.
• APIs and connectivity – To make an app fully operational, front-end engineers also facilitate connectivity across application services using APIs. APIs provide persistence and centralization to an app’s functionalities.
• Unit testing – Front-end developers implement unit tests to verify that each code section performs as expected. Unit testing reduces costs, prevents bugs, and retains users once an app moves into production. Angular developers commonly use Jasmine, Karma, Mocha, and Siesta.
• End-to-end (e2e) testing – End-to-end testing is the final component in ensuring that applications behave as intended. Front-end engineers use e2e tests to ensure that the correct data flow is maintained during user tasks and processes. Some of the e2e testing tools available to Angular engineers include Cypress, Nightwatch, and WebdriverIO.

As you begin your search, identify candidates with substantial experience across these areas, with familiarity in front-end languages (i.e., JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, and CSS), unit testing frameworks, and e2e testing tools.

Note: Pay special attention to developers’ mastery of standard UI frameworks, especially ones that are commonly used when building Angular apps. At the very least, you should expect Angular developers to have familiarity with Bootstrap, Tailwind CSS, and Angular Material.

After verifying front-end expertise, you should assess developers’ mastery of how Angular works behind the scenes. Angular engineers of all levels should be able to articulate how the most critical aspects of an Angular application work together. They should also be familiar with the various technologies required for app development.

Angular developers should be well-versed in a multitude of technologies:

• HTML and CSS – Angular templates are written in HTML, and styles are written in CSS. To successfully build and debug views, candidates should understand basic HTML and CSS concepts like flexboxes, variables, spans, divs, and attributes. Web developers may prefer to work with a CSS extension language like Sass for improved syntax, added functionality, and reduced development time.
• JavaScript and TypeScript – Angular is written in TypeScript, a strongly typed superset of JavaScript. Since these languages code the primary application logic, TypeScript and JavaScript are essential skills for an Angular developer. Look for solid experience with both languages.
• RxJS – RxJS (Reactive Extensions for JavaScript) is a programming library that provides observable streams and is commonly used with Angular for tasks like HTTP requests. It facilitates asynchronous and event-based programs, so if your app requires either of these functionalities, you’ll want a candidate familiar with RxJS.

Aside from using Angular and its foundational languages and libraries, engineers will also interact with supplementary technologies serving the following functions:

• Source control technologies manage codebase changes and preserve previous working versions of code. Developers should be familiar with standard tools such as Git.
• Package managers install web development packages—both Angular itself and other libraries that may be required. Many Angular engineers work with npm, for example.
• Command-line interface tools provide functionality for the development of Angular applications from a command shell. Look for candidates trained in Angular CLI, the standard choice for Angular development.

Modern engineers must be proficient in many skills, and this is especially true in the case of front-end—and Angular—development.

How can you identify the ideal Angular Developer for you?

To identify the developer best suited to your website, you must consider what stage of development your app is in and how much training your budget and resources allow.

First, if you have an existing team and plan to add new product features or maintain web apps (e.g., fix bugs), junior developers will often suffice. However, certain project goals will mandate the hiring of more senior developers. Such goals may include:

• Analyzing and removing performance bottlenecks (e.g., change detection or implementing pipes).
• Making big-picture infrastructure or design decisions (e.g., launching a complex application from scratch).
• Implementing ideation and training around team standards (e.g., setting best practices on testing and code coverage).

Developers at this level should have additional skills beyond front-end and Angular app foundations. Search for candidates with experience in application lifecycle management, high-level code design, advanced reactive programming and observables, application state management, and team management or coaching.

Second, it may make sense to consider developers with a background in other front-end frameworks. You may be curious whether your project requires a specialized Angular developer or if an engineer with related front-end or framework skills can successfully work on your app.

When looking at Angular versus React, these front-end frameworks’ main difference—and your choice between Angular and React developers—primarily comes down to Angular being a full-fledged framework and React being a library.

In other words, React offers more flexibility than Angular, but Angular is a more comprehensive tool. Your Angular versus React developer decision depends on your project requirements. Many React skills offer a solid foundation for Angular concepts, so a strong React developer may be a suitable candidate for particular projects. React developers may understand basic Angular concepts but will not know all the nuances of its features—so you’ll need to budget for an initial training period.

How to Write an Angular Job Description for Your Project

In addition to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Angular job descriptions should mention TypeScript as a mandatory skill and require significant front-end experience in building user interfaces, interacting with APIs, and implementing testing.

You may customize your developer requirements based on your application, team size, and specific project needs. Based on your use case, you should list other developer qualities such as experience with performance bottlenecks, libraries (e.g., RxJS), or testing frameworks (e.g., Jasmine, Jest, Cypress).

What are the most important Angular interview questions?

When assessing Angular developer skills, not all questions need to focus on Angular-specific topics. Asking generally about front-end development can be illuminating too.

You may start with questions testing developers’ front-end expertise, covering key areas such as code design and testing:

When working on application architecture, how do you design your code?

There is no single correct answer here. Instead, you should get a sense of a developer’s thought process from their answer. They should consider a variety of factors:

• Code organization and requirements for new libraries or modules
• Reusability of components and directives
• Structure of the business logic and state

Assess a candidate’s answer to determine how thoroughly they plan their designs.

What is the difference between unit tests and end-to-end tests?

Unit tests are focused tests that run on small pieces of code to verify behavior and prevent bugs. Writing and executing unit tests can be done quickly, and applications will typically have many unit tests across multiple app surfaces. End-to-end tests, on the other hand, simulate user scenarios and verify app data flows. They are more comprehensive than unit tests and, as such, require more time to execute. Angular can pair with unit testing tools like Jasmine, Karma, Jest, and Mocha, and end-to-end testing tools like Protractor, Cypress, Nightwatch, and WebdriverIO.

Next, to ensure developers have adequate high-level knowledge of Angular apps, test their understanding of how Angular applications work:

What are the most critical aspects of an Angular application?

Candidates should describe the following basic concepts—you may probe for specifics if needed:

• Components – The building blocks of an Angular application, components translate into the user interface elements seen on a webpage. In code, each Angular component corresponds to a class that defines its functionality and an HTML template that defines its view.
  • Root component – Angular applications have at least one component, the root component, by default. This piece helps the application start by linking the component hierarchy to the page document object model (DOM).
• NgModules – NgModules are the functional units of code that make up an Angular application. An Angular app is like a puzzle where each piece (or module) works together to deliver the complete picture (or app functionality). Modules organize related code and may include workflows, features, pipes, or services. Components are also grouped into NgModules.
  • Root module – Angular’s root module (AppModule) is essential to any application, providing bootstrapping and launching the app. Simple apps may only require the root module, but additional feature modules are necessary to support more complex applications.
• Services – Services are classes that organize reusable business logic that is outside of the scope of specific views. In other words, services offer functionality that can be shared across components via dependencies.
  • Router service – The Router is an important example of an Angular service; it facilitates in-browser navigation among different application views by mapping them to paths. Using Angular’s router service in an application is as simple as importing the Router NgModule. Angular guards and resolvers also manage route changes and activations; familiarity with these features is a bonus.

Lastly, on the server side, the index.html page is a single-page application’s default page that is loaded in the browser. The index.html page links the root component and module to the webpage, performing rendering.

An answer that fails to mention components, modules, services, and the index.html page indicates that the candidate is junior and may lack fundamental Angular knowledge.

Finally, end the interview with questions that assess a developer’s coding abilities and understanding of Angular features:

What lifecycle hooks are available in Angular?

Angular apps have lifecycle processes from initiation to the end of the application. The most crucial lifecycle hooks are:

• ngOnInit: called at component initialization.
• ngOnDestroy: called when the component is destroyed.
• ngOnChanges: called when an attribute changes.

Additional change detection hooks for components include ngDoCheck, ngAfterContentInit, ngAfterContentChecked, ngAfterViewInit, and ngAfterViewChecked. Developers who understand these hooks may be especially suitable candidates.

What are Angular pipes, and why would you use them?

Pipes are functions that can be used in template expressions to transform output values. Pipes are declared once but used throughout an application. They can change how data appears to a user (e.g., date formatting). Using pure pipes may also boost an application’s performance.

What strategies would you use for Angular state management?

There are many state management libraries to choose from, such as NgRx, Akita, and NgXs. State management may occur at the application, module, or component levels. Developers should understand the difference between these Angular application states.

What is a common source of memory leaks in Angular? How would you fix leaks?

Failing to unsubscribe from an Observable is one common source of memory leaks. There are multiple ways to destroy an Observable and solve this issue, such as using the async pipe or annotations, or manually unsubscribing at the end of the component’s lifetime.

You may also elect to use the essential UI developer or essential web developer interview question guides as additional resources for preparation.

Why do companies hire Angular Developers?

Angular developers can serve a majority of front-end needs. Angular is feature-rich, has many tooling options for front-end UI and testing, is supported by Google, and achieves effective reactive programming.

Angular developers serve larger projects well due to the framework’s scalable architecture and modular organization, as well as its library offerings. Companies benefit from Angular’s standardized structure and decoupled components, which allow for fast development speeds, straightforward testing, and maintainable code. Also, keeping an app codebase up to date is simple due to Angular’s consistent release schedule.

Angular is also ideal for projects that will grow in the future: Developers can use it to lay the foundation of your application, so your app can grow with your business. If you’re at the start of your web development journey, hiring Angular developers is especially practical—the framework offers strong community and educational resources, streamlining developers’ learning trajectories.

Whether you are working on a small or large application and want to hire Angular developers at the junior or senior level, the right expert can deliver an elegant web UI and help retain app users. By screening candidates for front-end and Angular fundamentals, determining advanced skill requirements, and refining your job description and interview questions, you can identify the best fit—and watch as users delight in a smooth website experience.

The technical content presented in this article was reviewed by Vojtech Machacek.