6 essential skills you should look for in a good Javascript developer

Having a good Javascript developer at your disposal is essential for your business.

19:47 16 September 2019

That’s because Javascript is one of the most widely-used languages in the world today, as it’s one of the building blocks of the modern web (alongside HTML and CSS). The language is responsible for bringing interactivity to a website, a must for any site. That’s why having a pro by your side to help you with that is key.

Of course, finding the right professional isn’t precisely easy. Getting the perfect candidate implies knowing what differentiates a good Javascript engineer from a bad one and having the time to make that search. That’s the reason why outsourcing Javascript appears as the best option for so many companies.

However, knowing which are the skills that a good Javascript developer must-have can be beneficial. It can help you search for a good candidate to join your company or aid you when hiring one of the Javascript development companies available. Let’s review 6 of those skills that make up a perfect Javascript engineer.

1 - Knowledge of the core language

At first glance, Javascript seems like a complicated language. That’s because it has tons of things surrounding it: APIs, jQuery, React, npm packages, etc. However, at its core, Javascript is a very simple language. There are a small number of standard libraries that, along with the core language, are the basic foundations to build the most used features in any given website.

This means that a good Javascript developer should know basic language features like if/else, error handling, array, and string manipulation, and how to work with JSON data and JSON object methods. That’s not all. Javascript developers should also be on top of the latest features, especially the ones added in ES6, things like modules, classes, and template literals.

A professional might read this and laugh, as these are considered the basics of the Javascript language. However, you do want to work with a developer or with Javascript development services that are capable of understanding the basics of the code.

2 - Ability to keep up with the latest trends

This is sound advice for pretty much anyone who has a job in technology right now. However, it becomes insanely important for something as dynamic as Javascript development. There are new methods, tools, APIs, and technologies being released almost any given day. A lot of them interact with Javascript in different ways, so a good developer should know not only about the existence of these new tools but also how to make them work with the existing code.

Thus, a good Javascript engineer should be aware of the latest trends surrounding the language. That means that he or she should know where to get the right information to stay up to date. A professional that knows about the top development communities and it’s an active member of the development community has more chances of having the latest information and, thus, of providing you with the full potential of the Javascript language.

3 - Knowledge about how different platforms and browsers work

You surely know that devices are becoming more varied and diversified. That means that people accessing a certain website will do so with different gadgets with wildly different technologies behind them. Thus, Javascript developers need to be sure that everything works great for every single one of those people.

In other words, a good Javascript engineer knows how to make things work across browsers, platforms, and devices that are very different from one another. For that to happen, he or she needs to have a deep understanding of how those browsers, platforms, and devices actually work. That’s not all. Whenever a new technology makes its appearance, the developer should know how to adjust the content to make it look and behave exactly the same in that new tech.

4 - Experience with React and Redux

We’ve already said that the Javascript ecosystem is complex and populous, so Javascript developers might have experience with different sets of tools. However, there are certain tools that have become so popular that knowing how to handle them is now a must. React and Redux are two of them.

React is a Javascript library used to easily build interfaces. It has been steadily growing in popularity for a couple of years, thanks to its great performance in the development of single-page or mobile applications. For its part, Redux is another Javascript library used for managing the state of an application. With it, a Javascript developer has it much easier to test applications and find bugs in the code.

Both of these libraries are typically used together for current development. That’s why a good Javascript engineer should have certain experience with them, as they help with the work and provide better
applications as a result.

5 - Basic knowledge of design

Any Javascript developer might argue that they shouldn’t have to know about design since a good development team should have a professional designer in place to handle the design tasks. While that’s true, there’s more to it than it seems. Unless you are looking for a Javascript developer to work solely on the server-side (something unthinkable), there will be a couple of times when the developer will have to bridge certain design gaps that the designer might have left unattended.

Thus, a good Javascript developer will have enough knowledge to implement a basic visual design through HTML and CSS while also being able to come up with a simple UI that looks and works fine. A Javascript developer that’s capable of both of those things has a neat advantage over the colleagues that aren’t, since designing isn’t an easy feat, especially when combining it with programming.

6 - Good communication

If you do a quick Google search, you’ll see that good communication appears as one of the must-have soft skills for a lot of jobs - and the Javascript developer role isn’t the exception. That’s because web development is essentially a team effort that will have the professional talking with other professionals to take your website towards its goal.

Good communication will also come in handy whenever the developer talks to people that aren’t as understanding in programming as they are. That means that a good Javascript engineer should be able to explain to you and any other person how are they working and why are they working that way, and clarify any situation or problem that might arise during development.

Conclusion

Many business executives offshore Javascript development and forget all about it, trusting their Javascript development outsourcing company with finding the right professionals. However, as we said above, knowing what makes a good developer can help you in picking the right outsourcing company and understand how good the team they are offering you actually is.

Of course, all this knowledge is more useful if you’re looking for a Javascript developer for an in-house position, as you’ll need it to find the best candidate. Regardless of the option you choose, one thing’s for certain: if you want to work with a good Javascript engineer, you’ll have to make sure that he or she has these, the 6 essential skills needed for the job.