Toptal is a marketplace for top jQuery developers, engineers, programmers, coders, architects, and consultants. Top companies and startups choose Toptal jQuery freelancers for their mission-critical software projects.
United KingdomToptal Member Since September 4, 2015
Anne is an experienced developer who has worked both for large corporations and startups. After building financial trading applications for eight years as an engineer at Merrill Lynch, Anne founded and built LoudUp, a music-based social network that she designed, developed, and launched from the ground up. She specializes in .NET technologies and JavaScript.
United StatesToptal Member Since February 28, 2022
Chris has been in the software engineering industry for over ten years. He started as a QA and transitioned into web engineering. He specializes in front-end development with React, TypeScript, and Next.js. He has deployed new apps, created new processes and CI/CD pipelines, mentored junior developers, expanded on machine learning projects using TensorFlow to train models, and restructured automation test suites. Chris loves solving problems with code.
Bach can both code and design pixel-perfect, responsive, robust, and reusable React applications, UI component libraries, headless websites, and landing pages. He was endorsed with this 2-in-1-skillset by many senior full-stack developers from NASDAQ-listed and ASX-listed companies. He has helped developers and UX designers speed the delivery of impeccable, automatically-tested, consistent, fast, and maintainable front-end applications and libraries with his complementary blend of skills.
Viktor is a skilled software architect with 10 years of expertise in front-end ecosystems. Since 2016, he has focused on creating superior React applications for high-traffic services using leading-edge solutions. As a professional committed to excellence, Viktor welcomes opportunities to work on projects where innovation aligns with stakeholder objectives. Over the past decade, he specialized in the front-end ecosystem. He is also comfortable working in full-stack environments.
Damian is an enthusiastic ASP.NET and PHP developer with over ten years of experience in professional development, mainly for the banking, transportation and insurance industries. His freelance work includes various technologies, including MS SQL database and front-end layers using JavaScript frameworks such as Angular, React, or Vue.js.
United KingdomToptal Member Since December 22, 2021
Henry is a software engineer with 9+ years of hands-on experience. He is currently a senior software engineer at Paystack (the leading fintech in Africa and a subsidiary of Stripe), where he builds different financial solutions. He was a senior software engineer at LawPavilion, a legal tech company in Nigeria, and was later promoted to manage the engineering department. A tech enthusiast, Henry has mastered a range of technologies. He enjoys learning as much as he enjoys coaching.
Mauricio is a full-stack developer focused on .NET technologies. To any project, Mauricio brings years of extensive management experience and a well-rounded skill set with proven competencies in organizing and leading successful teams working on highly complex projects in software development. Mauricio’s areas of expertise include various languages (TypeScript, C#, .NET, JavaScript), libraries/APIs (Entity Framework, jQuery), and frameworks (.NET Core, ASP.NET, Angular), among others.
Valters is a senior programmer with several years of experience in the IT field. He hits the ground running when using new technologies and has a habit of unceasingly improving his existing skills. He's worked in variously sized companies and projects and has been mainly focusing on web development as well as SAP development. Other than that, Valters is a person with whom it's easy and fun to work with.
Greg is a senior software developer with six years of experience building on the web. He is a back-end-heavy full-stack developer with experience across various stacks. Greg has worked on tens of projects, from simple presentation websites to modular e-shops, from complex booking systems to enterprise banking apps, and anything in between. He also has experience performing requirements analysis and leading teams to implement projects in an efficient and timely manner.
If you are looking for someone who can do it all on his own, someone who has been there, someone who can handle all your technical needs so that you can concentrate on your business/organization, you have arrived at the right profile. Theo is a WordPress meetup organizer and community contributor. His ultimate aim and pleasure are to help businesses grow and thrive instead of just making websites and applications that don't contribute to anything.
Stefan is focused on supporting entrepreneurs, small businesses, startups, agencies, and companies all around the world to make their ideas and projects (that involve web and mobile technology) closer to their customers. His work is a mixture of passion, expertise, creativity, and experience. Stefan excels at turning good ideas into great digital products that people love to use and interact with.
Ensuring cross-browser compatibility had been challenging—until developers started using the still-popular jQuery framework. This jQuery hiring guide includes best practices, interview questions and tips, and advice on finding candidates who can transition from jQuery in new projects.
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Despite accelerating demand for coders, Toptal prides itself on almost Ivy League-level vetting.
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Photo Kharma
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PriceBlink
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André Fischer, CTO
POSTIFY
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Kognosi
We had a great experience with Toptal. They paired us with the perfect developer for our application and made the process very easy. It was also easy to extend beyond the initial time frame, and we were able to keep the same contractor throughout our project. We definitely recommend Toptal for finding high quality talent quickly and seamlessly.
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Applied Business Technologies, LLC
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Pietro Casoar, CEO
Ronin Play Pty Ltd
Working with Toptal has been a great experience. Prior to using them, I had spent quite some time interviewing other freelancers and wasn't finding what I needed. After engaging with Toptal, they matched me up with the perfect developer in a matter of days. The developer I'm working with not only delivers quality code, but he also makes suggestions on things that I hadn't thought of. It's clear to me that Amaury knows what he is doing. Highly recommended!
George Cheng, CEO
Bulavard, Inc.
As a Toptal qualified front-end developer, I also run my own consulting practice. When clients come to me for help filling key roles on their team, Toptal is the only place I feel comfortable recommending. Toptal's entire candidate pool is the best of the best. Toptal is the best value for money I've found in nearly half a decade of professional online work.
Ethan Brooks, CTO
Langlotz Patent & Trademark Works, Inc.
In Higgle's early days, we needed the best-in-class developers, at affordable rates, in a timely fashion. Toptal delivered!
Lara Aldag, CEO
Higgle
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Michael Gluckman, Data Manager
Mxit
Toptal’s ability to rapidly match our project with the best developers was just superb. The developers have become part of our team, and I’m amazed at the level of professional commitment each of them has demonstrated. For those looking to work remotely with the best engineers, look no further than Toptal.
Laurent Alis, Founder
Livepress
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Jeff Kelly, Co-Founder
Concerted Solutions
We needed some short-term work in Scala, and Toptal found us a great developer within 24 hours. This simply would not have been possible via any other platform.
Franco Arda, Co-Founder
WhatAdsWork.com
Toptal offers a no-compromise solution to businesses undergoing rapid development and scale. Every engineer we've contracted through Toptal has quickly integrated into our team and held their work to the highest standard of quality while maintaining blazing development speed.
Greg Kimball, Co-Founder
nifti.com
How to Hire jQuery Developers through Toptal
1
Talk to One of Our Industry Experts
A Toptal director of engineering will work with you to understand your goals, technical needs, and team dynamics.
2
Work With Hand-Selected Talent
Within days, we'll introduce you to the right jQuery developer for your project. Average time to match is under 24 hours.
3
The Right Fit, Guaranteed
Work with your new jQuery developer for a trial period (pay only if satisfied), ensuring they're the right fit before starting the engagement.
Find Experts With Related Skills
Access a vast pool of skilled developers in our talent network and hire the top 3% within just 48 hours.
According to Glassdoor, the estimated total pay for a jQuery developer in the United States is $77,717 as of October 10, 2023. This salary can vary, however, especially if you plan to hire remote jQuery developers. In addition, filtering and interviewing candidates can be very time-consuming. Hiring managers can expect to allocate 40 to 60 person-hours to a job search.
How do I hire a jQuery developer?
Start with a problem statement without biasing your job description by demanding specific technologies. Since jQuery is established, look for candidates with more than five years of experience working with jQuery; newer developers tend to be attracted to newer frameworks. Get a sense of what the candidate does beyond solving a given feature—can they speak to performance, accessibility, and maintainability improvements?
How in demand are jQuery developers?
JQuery is used on 94% of websites that use a JavaScript framework. Although newer frameworks have emerged and are more appropriate when starting a new project, jQuery development remains in high demand. Front-end development changes quickly, with new frameworks emerging constantly, yet jQuery usage remains stable. If you have a site that uses jQuery, there’s a very good business case to be made for staying the course.
How quick is the hiring process with Toptal?
Typically, you can hire a jQuery developer with Toptal in about 48 hours. Our talent matchers are experts in the same fields they’re matching in—they’re not recruiters or HR reps. They’ll work with you to understand your goals, technical needs, and team dynamics, and match you with ideal candidates from our vetted global talent network.
Once you select your jQuery specialist, you’ll have a no-risk trial period to ensure they’re the perfect fit. Our matching process has a 98% trial-to-hire rate, so you can rest assured that you’re getting the best fit every time.
Scott is a full-stack developer with 12 years of experience. He is an expert in writing jQuery plugins and specializes in third-party API integrations, including Mailchimp, Cloudflare, and Shopify. He has led a technology team at Bootstrap and has presented at the Google campus in Seattle and at WordCamp Portland.
Why Demand for jQuery Developers Remains Strong Despite Headwinds
Cross-browser compatibility was the most nefarious problem in the history of front-end development—until jQuery solved it. JQuery is an exceptionally good framework and one of the most successful open-source software projects of all time, with upward of 280,000 repositories on GitHub and usage on more than 77% of all websites as of June 2023. If you have a legacy website that requires maintenance, it’s extremely likely that you will need to hire a jQuery developer. WordPress remains highly popular and drives jQuery’s popularity and longevity, and developers in charge of maintaining jQuery believe the transition to alternative technologies will be gradual.
JQuery’s motto is “Write less, do more.” That’s a nod to jQuery’s razor-sharp syntax and the fact that it is cross-browser compatible. But it can also be read as a wisecrack on the role of jQuery in the modern web stack: Although it’s perfectly reasonable to continue using jQuery on sites that rely on it, virtually all new projects should use it less, not more. Even if a user relies on a multitude of browsers, all modern browsers are more competent than those of the 2010s, and new frameworks like React and Vue have emerged to fit modern front-end development. If you are building a new project, you might not need to hire a jQuery developer.
This leaves hiring managers in a difficult position: They may have a genuine need for jQuery talent, but they must hire appropriately to avoid encumbering a codebase with the wrong framework, thereby necessitating the need for jQuery developers for years to come. This jQuery hiring guide aims to inform hiring managers and other stakeholders about the technical aspects of jQuery, its strengths and weaknesses, long-term industry trends, and what prerequisites to look for in candidates at every step of the hiring process.
What attributes distinguish quality jQuery Developers from others?
Regardless of a project’s scope or the size of the team, there are some attributes that a senior jQuery developer should possess that set them apart from mid-level or junior jQuery engineers:
Scale
A junior jQuery developer can sprinkle in a bit of jQuery here and there to power small interactions and features, such as a dropdown menu.
A senior jQuery developer can deliver larger components like data visualization, faceted search, and off-canvas menus that offer a clean UX despite their complexity.
Performance
A junior jQuery developer delivers JavaScript UI elements.
A senior jQuery developer delivers JavaScript UI elements with a sharp eye on performance tools such as Google’s Lighthouse or desktop apps like Activity Monitor, which ships with Mac products.
Accessibility
A junior jQuery developer writes code that works—for them.
A senior jQuery developer writes code that works with accessibility in mind and serves users like people who cannot see the display or use a mouse or keyboard.
Discretion
Any jQuery developer can use jQuery for every JavaScript feature on their project.
A senior jQuery specialist will think critically about whether a framework is necessary and, if so, if jQuery is the optimal choice. To wit, there are two situations where jQuery makes sense: existing projects that use it already or (to a lesser degree) any project that uses a CMS that is likely to bundle jQuery for the long haul. Within those scenarios, the expert will find opportunities to replace jQuery with pure JavaScript. Outside those scenarios, an expert jQuery engineer will have the hands-on experience and judgment necessary to guide the project to an adjacent technology.
Organization
A junior jQuery developer will write code to solve a problem.
A senior jQuery engineer will bundle jQuery code in an organized fashion, such as a jQuery plugin or a class; they can deliver highly robust user-facing modules.
While the shift to alternative technologies—modern JavaScript frameworks or plain JavaScript— is gradual and will likely take years, hiring managers should consider the implications now. Selecting candidates from a large talent pool, narrowing the selection, interviewing the most promising individuals, and onboarding new hires is no small feat. The process involves management and senior engineers, i.e., individuals whose time is valuable and should be used as efficiently as possible. Therefore, candidates with broad skill sets have an advantage when it comes to long-term positions. As jQuery projects wind down, candidates with proven track records of upskilling and adaptability will remain valuable.
The ideal candidate will likely need an array of front-end programming skills—unless a client is hiring a jQuery specialist for a one-off project.
How can you identify the ideal jQuery Developer for you?
How you search for an ideal jQuery engineer will vary depending on the type and scale of the project, whether or not you need to hire a single jQuery developer or team, the amount of legacy code involved, and other factors. Hiring remote jQuery developers may require the consideration of additional factors, such as working across time zones and communicating in multiple languages.
However, a hiring manager will not have to weigh whether to hire a junior or a senior jQuery developer. Because jQuery is a legacy framework—and has stopped adding new features—it makes sense to only hire someone with many years of jQuery experience and strong knowledge of the framework. Developers who are early in their careers are trending toward more modern frameworks such as React, Vue, or Angular. A “junior jQuery developer” is likely to be someone who, in actuality, doesn’t want to work with jQuery but needs to know its basics, even though they focus on modern frameworks.
To identify jQuery experts, start with a problem statement. Describe the problem that needs to be solved in a way that will make sense to someone with no context for your business requirements and limited knowledge of your industry. What is the status of your project or feature now? What would you like it to be?
Be clear about whether or not your project uses jQuery. Explain the larger tech stack around your project: Is it on a popular CMS like WordPress? Does it use any plugins on the front end that include jQuery? Is the codebase organized in a certain way, with crucial front-end modules, and does its structure promote reusable code? These factors tip the scale in favor of using jQuery and will help front-end developers decide if their skill sets are a good fit for your project.
When ubiquitous technology becomes outdated, caveats and gray areas appear. For example, what if a small company launches a spinoff of an existing project built using jQuery? Ten years ago, the new project would repurpose as much existing code as possible with jQuery in tow. However, that approach wouldn’t be a good long-term choice today.
Perhaps management will decide to build the new project from the ground up and use that knowledge to update their core project. Alternatively, they can enlist freelance jQuery developers and work on both projects in parallel. Expert input from seasoned jQuery engineers can be of great value in such scenarios.
Complementary Skills for jQuery Developers
JQuery, as a JavaScript framework, exists as part of the trinity of front-end web development programming languages: JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5. Consider these technical skills when hiring a jQuery developer:
JavaScript – A good jQuery developer should have a deep and continuing education in “vanilla” JavaScript, i.e., JavaScript that does not use any framework. As JavaScript becomes ever more powerful, the role of jQuery shrinks. Your developer should not think of jQuery as their only hammer and your project as yet another nail. Other popular JS frameworks such as React, Vue, and Angular should be considered as well.
CSS – A jQuery developer will likely be responsible for styling newly created components, which will require writing CSS. Here’s a good litmus test: Does the candidate have an opinion—some sort of well-formed, perhaps passionate opinion—on the emerging debate between “semantic class names” versus utility-first CSS, perhaps through a framework like TailwindCSS? There’s no one right answer, but it’s helpful to understand if the candidate takes his craft seriously and has a stake in where it’s going.
HTML5 – A jQuery developer should take seriously the decision of which HTML element to choose for a particular situation because it can have big implications that are not obvious at first. For example, suppose a developer uses a link for a menu show/hide button instead of the HTML button element. This may create a confusing experience for users who navigate with a screen reader.
How to Write a jQuery Developer Job Description for Your Project
A jQuery job description must be clear about whether or not your project relies heavily on jQuery.
Also, note any special concerns around front-end performance tests like Google’s Core Web Vitals, as jQuery can impact those tests. This detail should attract jQuery engineers with extensive experience who’ve optimized and updated sites and know what challenges and pitfalls to expect.
Finally, include some context about the tech stack your project uses. Is it on WordPress? Does it rely on plugins that use jQuery? Are you considering changing the stack in the long run? If so, how?
What are the most important jQuery Developer interview questions?
Because interviewers and candidates typically spend a lot of time preparing for job interviews, creating truly original interview questions is a good practice. Don’t rely on common questions that are just a Google search away. Prepare open-ended questions and be ready to expand on them with follow-ups. Don’t shy away from curveballs. Here is a selection of interview questions to ask when hiring for jQuery development services:
Is jQuery a good fit for every project? Why or why not?
The candidate should recognize that jQuery is inappropriate for new web projects but assert that it’s the best choice when a project already relies on jQuery and a full rewrite is out of scope. Additionally, they should understand that jQuery can have a minor negative impact on performance tests like Google’s Core Web Vitals, so if there’s little margin for error there, jQuery will be a hindrance.
What are some performance concerns related to jQuery? How might you mitigate them?
The candidate should explain that there are two general categories of performance issues:
Loading the jQuery library itself, which should be done as late in the page load as possible so as to not block other assets.
In-browser performance of jQuery, which can be optimized by caching selectors. For example, if developers use jQuery to take a few different actions on every link on the page, select the entire collection of links once, and then re-use that selection for each action. Novice jQuery developers will sometimes repeat the selection process multiple times.
Explain what a jQuery plugin is and whether or not you might write one for this project.
The candidate should explain that a jQuery plugin is a standard way of delivering a jQuery feature so it will be recognizable to other skilled developers. It gives a convenient syntax for applying a given feature to a specific page element while allowing multiple elements on the same page to re-use the same feature (if warranted).
How do you test your work beyond making sure that a given feature seems to work?
The candidate should be accustomed to using Google’s Lighthouse tool to audit for common front-end issues around performance, a11y, and SEO. They deserve bonus points if they mention using a desktop application like Mac’s Activity Monitor to see if they’ve written something that’s taxing the CPU.
What can you tell me about the jQuery UI library?
The candidate should explain that jQuery UI is a collection of helpful user interface elements written in jQuery and maintained by largely the same community as jQuery itself. Many of its implementations, like autosuggests, accordions, and datepickers, are de facto standards.
Why do companies hire jQuery Developers?
Companies hire jQuery developers because jQuery is immensely popular and easy to work with. It’s used on a staggering 77% of websites, and it’s a staple of WordPress development, since it’s used by countless third-party WordPress plugins. Unless a full rewrite is in scope, most modern businesses will find that the continued use of jQuery is a perfectly viable and economical way to keep a successful project on track.
A jQuery engineer can help maintain and improve existing sites, especially in terms of performance, a key SEO metric. In addition, jQuery experts can help future-proof sites to a certain degree, as well as help clients plan ahead, i.e., help them lessen their reliance on jQuery in favor of plain JavaScript and other technologies.
What are the most popular jQuery use cases?
JQuery enables faster development of pages that provide the user with a rich visual experience. Classic examples include a slider, an autosuggest search, and an accordion menu.
Many of these are bundled as well-known jQuery plugins through the excellent jQuery UI library.
Additionally, when a site needs to make an HTTP call to the server (also known as AJAX), jQuery has fantastic syntax.
How can hiring an experienced jQuery developer contribute to the success of a project?
JQuery is very good at Document Object Model (DOM) manipulation and AJAX capabilities. If you have a site or a feature with many moving elements that may require interaction with third-party APIs and websites, jQuery has excellent built-in methods, including those for DOM tree traversal.
An experienced jQuery developer will take a step back from the feature at hand and contribute to a conversation about whether jQuery is appropriate for a project. The best jQuery development process today weans sites off of jQuery and onto vanilla JavaScript.
A jQuery expert will be able to fulfill immediate business needs through the use of jQuery while taking opportunities to migrate away from it when appropriate.
