The React Native Developer Hiring Checklist: What To Look For & Job Template (2023)

In the vast landscape of front-end frameworks, React stands tall as the main player, propelling the evolution of web development with companies like Vercel, Facebook, and the countless developers using the technology. Resting on the shoulders of this giant, React Native emerges as a formidable choice for cross-platform app development, but the quest for skilled React Native developers is not without challenges.

In the following article, we present you with a practical checklist of qualities and skills to consider while hiring a React Native developer. At JAMStack Consulting, we know from experience that these requirements form the bedrock for delivering outstanding final products and secure the services of top-tier React Native developers.

What’s React Native

React and React Native are both technologies to build user interfaces (UI). React is a JavaScript library developed by Facebook to create reusable UI components and easily manage the state of their application. React Native is a framework to build mobile applications using React by rendering native components for iOS and Android instead of a Document Object Model (DOM) used in web browsers.

Hiring a React Native developer is a smart strategic choice for online businesses because it allows them to leverage the popularity and power of React to speed up development lifecycles while increasing app performance, with the notable opportunity to publish mobile and desktop apps to target new market segments.

6 Things To Look For In A React Native Developer

1. Good Javascript basics

Since React Native is a Javascript framework, the developer should have a solid foundation in Javascript:

Look for open-source contributions - Open-source contributions give a glimpse of a candidate’s coding style and experience.
Go through published projects - Public projects demonstrate the ability to create working software that people can actually use, which is what having a good understanding of Javascript basics is all about.
Gauge problem-solving skills - Use simple coding challenges to observe how they approach the problem and their ability to break it down into manageable steps.

Additionally, proficiency in Typescript is getting increasingly common to create more robust and secure Javascript projects.

2. Understanding of React Native concepts

The developer should understand the basic concepts of React Native:

Virtual DOM - React uses a virtual DOM, a lightweight representation of the actual browser DOM, to efficiently update the UI by avoiding unnecessary DOM requests.
JSX - A syntax extension to write HTML-like code within JavaScript, enabling the seamless combination of UI components and logic.
Components - React Native revolves around the concept of reusable components, allowing developers to build UI elements that encapsulate their own state and behavior to create a more modular codebase.
Navigation, props, lifecycle methods, etc.

They should also be familiar with React state management solutions like Jotai or Redux. State management is crucial in React Native apps because it allows for centralized data management that simplifies data access and updates, as well as complex communication between related React components with standardized data structures. It also helps with app performance and debugging in large React codebases.

3. Basic project management and CI/CD knowledge

The developer should be able to deliver working software on a regular basis, using tools like:

Version control - Version control tools like Git enable efficient collaboration among team members and facilitate code integration with conflict resolution. They provide a history of changes, allowing developers and project managers to track changes, revert to previous versions, and easily identify and fix issues.
Agile methodologies - To promote iterative and incremental development, continuous improvement, and increase delivery speed.
Testing frameworks - On top of linters and type checking with Typescript, unit and functional tests play a key part in developing maintainable software that’s easier to fix. React Native’s default template includes Jest as a testing framework.

They should also have experience deploying applications with simple Devops pipelines (build, test, deploy) to common serverless environments like Vercel, Netlify, and Cloudflare Pages.

4. Communication skills

The developer should have excellent communication skills to work efficiently and satisfy stakeholder requirements:

Show you can work asynchronously - At the core, communication is a necessity to work in a team. With the rise of remote work and more cross-functional dev teams, it’s even more important to master written-based communication and tools like Slack or Loom.
Learn how to communicate ideas and progress effectively - Again, mastering Git tools like Github, Gitlab, or Bitbucket is important to track progress and issues while maintaining a clear project roadmap.
Define key metrics and non-functional requirements - Great communication requires aligning common interests. To take into account the needs of different stakeholders, identifying key metrics in the form of non-functional requirements like

The ability to express yourself well and listen to others is also an indicator of clear thinking, which is related to stronger technical abilities―you can’t explain what you don’t understand ―and the capacity to learn hard things fast.

5. Understanding of APIs

Application Programming Interfaces allow communication between an app and third-party services to manage data and features. React Native developers need a basic understanding of how APIs work to build integration with other tools, enhance user experience, and build more interactive applications:

REST HTTP calls - A RESTful API (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for designing web services using standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to access and manipulate resources in a stateless manner. RESTful APIs still make up most of the web API landscape, so there is no getting around using REST methods.
**Javascript network syntax ** - Async / await keywords, promises, debouncing and throttling, and threading are all advanced Javascript concepts that are important to build performant distributed React Native apps.
OAuth authentication & authorization - OAuth is the identity management standard used by most API providers, so you need to understand how it works to securely connect with certain API providers.
GraphQL - GraphQL is a query language for APIs that enables efficient data retrieval by allowing clients to request only the specific data they need to reduce network payloads and loading times. Developers should also be able to explain the benefits of GraphQL, like type safety and how it can improve developer experience to make apps more maintainable.

An understanding of how both relational (SQL) and document-based (NoSQL) databases work is a plus.

6. Experience level

As React Native is ever-evolving, it's important to stay up-to-date with the latest best practices and techniques. The developer should showcase recent experience and an ability to adapt:

Tool inventory - The React ecosystem offers a large selection of tools covering the whole software development lifecycle, so asking for an overview of the tools used by developers to complete their work is often an interesting indicator of their process and experience level.
Relevant documentation and sources - Having a technology watch process with reliable sources makes it easier to keep up with new changes, whether it’s official documentation, blogs, Github repositories, or social media accounts.
Basic app store knowledge - Knowing the intricacies of publishing on different app stores is also extremely important to comply with app store guidelines to quickly pass verification steps and ensure the success of an app.

Years of experience isn’t a great metric as it's not an accurate representation of actual knowledge: you can do the same thing for 5 years and call it experience, or have someone who took on increasingly hard tasks over the span of a year and find the latter more qualified to handle your project. That being said, it’s a balance to strike.

Job Description Template

While the six aforementioned points apply to most projects, you’ll need to adapt them to your own job requirements. One simple way to do this is to use the following ChatGPT prompt template to generate a solid job description:

“Write a job description to hire a React Native developer. We are <X> and we do <Y>. We want to make sure the candidate has the following characteristics: good Javascript basics (problem-solving, typescript, projects and open-source contributions optional), understanding of React Native concepts (VDOM, JSX, components, lifecycle, state management), basic project management and CI/CD knowledge (version control, agile, testing, serverless deployment), communication skills (async work, effective communication and progress tracking, KPIs), understanding of APIs (REST, javascript networking, OAuth, GraphQL), and a junior/senior experience level (app store knowledge).“

The more details you add, the better. Make sure to send the result our way to check it out!

Hire Us

By following this checklist, businesses can ensure they hire developers who possess the essential skills to build robust mobile applications with React Native.

For exceptional React Native development services, partner with JAMStack Consulting! We also provide React Native expertise to drive business growth, and you’ll gain access to experienced React Native developers who check all the marks! Contact us today to discuss how our expertise and creativity can bring your vision to life.

If you’re also hesitating to hire a Flutter developer, we have an article on the differences between Flutter and React Native. The same hiring best practices apply.