How to Hire a Full-Stack Developer: Complete Guide

A couple of decades ago, companies used to hire developers with some particular skills and expected them to fulfill a limited range of tasks. However, with time flow and with the progress made in the tech sphere, it became obvious that this approach was not always feasible. And that was the moment when a concept of full-stack development entered the game. The first job descriptions that mentioned companies’ plans to hire full-stack developers dated back to 2012. And for now full stack developers are in high demand in the market.

Though we can’t say that hiring full stack developers can be viewed as a new trend in the IT industry, we’ve noticed that there are a lot of misconceptions related to this approach to software development. The idea of working only with one developer instead of two may look quite attractive to managers and business owners. But is everything as seamless and easy as it may seem? In this blog post, we are going to concentrate on both benefits and pitfalls of full-stack development, explain how to hire a full stack developer, and share some practical tips on how to make this cooperation as successful and comfortable as possible.

The role of a full-stack developer typically covers much more than simple coding. A person who occupies such a position needs to have excellent knowledge and understanding of many technologies, frameworks, and programming languages. It means that quite often these specialists also execute control over the technical part of the development process, manage various tasks, and coordinate the work of other team members.

On different projects, the range of tasks for full-stack developers may differ. But as a rule, it includes:

• Writing code for all layers of a software product;
• Troubleshooting;
• Development process coordination;
• Debugging;
• Creating and maintaining servers and databases;
• API development;
• Participation in the roadmap creation;
• Writing documentation;
• Software performance monitoring.

A full-stack developer should have skills and knowledge in the following areas:

• Front-end (JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Angular, Vue.js, JQuery, React.js, JSON, AJAX)
• Back-end (Node.js, PHP, Java, Python)
• Basic design
• Databases(SQL, NoSQL)
• Git and Github
• REST and HTTP

Moreover, for efficient communication and collaboration soft skills are a must.

But if you randomly choose two full-stack developers, it is highly unlikely that they will have just the same skill sets. The issue is that there are different types of full-stack development which means that different skills are required for each of them. These types are defined based on the stacks that are applied:

• MEAN development (MongoDB, Express, Angular, Node);
• MERN development (MongoDB, Express, React, Node);
• LAMP development (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python);
• LEMP development (Linux + Nginx+ MySQL/MongoDB+ PHP);
• Full-stack Elixor development;
• Full-stack Python development;
• Full-stack Java development;
• Full-stack Django development.

What developers should you hire? The answer will depend on the requirements of your project.

When you need to hire a full stack developer, it is vital to make sure that you have found a specialist with high qualifications and excellent experience. As a rule, the tech interview has two parts. The first part is devoted to checking theoretical knowledge and during the second part you can check practical skills.

There are several points that you need to pay attention to.

As we’ve highlighted above, different projects and types of development require different skill sets. That’s why, first of all, you need to clearly understand what skills will be required in your case and look for candidates who can meet your requirements.

To find out whether a person really has all the claimed knowledge you can ask theoretical questions, such as:

• Is it possible for an HTML element to have multiple classes?
• How to avoid callbacks in Node.js?
• How can you explain the difference between do-while and while cycles in PHP?

The questions should correspond to the skill sets that you are looking for. It won’t be useful to ask questions about a programming language that a candidate won’t need to work with.

Full-stack developers can face a lot of tech challenges in their work. That’s why it is vital for this specialist to be able to identify the existing issues, detect the factors that have led to them, analyze them, and offer effective solutions.

During the interview, you can offer a candidate some real-life cases that happened on your projects and ask to analyze them and provide possible way-outs.

Profound knowledge is very important. But you shouldn’t underestimate the significance of practical experience. That’s why we highly recommend you ask candidates to share information about the projects that they have previously worked on, explain their tasks and contribution, and highlight the most challenging moment and how they managed to deal with them.

It is recommended to invite tech specialists to interviews with candidates. They should have the possibility to ask additional questions and analyze the complexity and the quality of the projects described by candidates.

Hiring a full-stack developer can be a great solution for your business. And to fully realize it, it will be necessary to have a look at the following business benefits.

Good full-stack developers are able to work with both server-side and client-side technologies and deeply understand the ways of interacting with databases. Their expertise will be highly valuable for your project realization. They will be able to build MVPs, and full-scale products, and participate in software testing, maintenance, and modernization.

As a rule, full-stack developers are able to work with different levels of the architecture of your software products. And it will be easier for you to create and expand your development teams for different projects. Moreover, full-stack developers usually can quickly adapt to various environments and technology landscapes which makes it simple to organize their work.

You can hire full stack developers instead of several specialists who will have either front-end or back-end development skills. Thanks to this fact, it will be more comfortable for you to interact with only one person to avoid communication failures and delays. Moreover, when only one person is responsible for the implementation of a particular feature, it is easier to ensure the desired consistency.

When you hire full-stack developers you can release solutions faster. This benefit can be of special importance for those companies that work in highly competitive markets and want to offer their products earlier than it will be done by their rivals.

Hiring full stack developers can be a good way out for those businesses that have limited budgets but do not want to put the software quality at risk.

Though all these benefits sound rather weighty, it is not true to say that full-stack development is an absolutely perfect approach. It also has some challenges and pitfalls that you should be aware of.

You always should provide accurate job descriptions in order to focus only on those candidates that have all the required skills and can be potentially hired. Full-stack development may include using absolutely different tech stacks and you should always indicate those tools and technologies that developers will need to work with.

It may be rather challenging to find developers with those skills and expertise that are required for your project. This point is especially relevant if you are looking for in-house specialists.

Sometimes managers believe that if they hire full stack developers, these guys can do really everything. Well, these guys can cover a lot of things but in any case, their responsibilities should have a clear scope. Moreover, it is vital to understand that they can’t do 10 tasks in parallel.

Though full stack developer services are continuously gaining popularity these days, there are a lot of companies that still hire back-end and front-end developers. And it is obvious that it can be the right approach in their particular cases. To help you better understand whether you should work with full-stack developers, we have prepared the following list of cases when you should definitely consider this option.

Thanks to hiring seasoned full-stack developers with a deep understanding of the needs of your industry, you can get access to unique expertise. Their knowledge will help your business grow and expand.

The launch of a minimum viable product can be an excellent idea when you want to assess the feasibility of investing in a full-scale solution. This approach presupposes building an app with a limited set of features. However, they should be enough for end users to understand the concept of your solution and share their feedback. Based on the gathered opinions, you will be able to come to a conclusion on the necessity to introduce changes, adjust the solution to market needs, or just choose another idea. When you hire full stack developers for such a project, you can build your MVP faster and optimize the project costs.

Financial questions always remain pressing for many companies that want to build their custom software product. It is very important to properly plan your budget in order to avoid unpleasant situations when you need to freeze your project realization due to budget constraints. When you are just estimating the project costs, you should bear in mind that you can save up to 40% if you hire a full stack developer instead of hiring back-end and front-end specialists. Nevertheless, let us remind you that you shouldn’t try to find developers with the lowest rates on the market. Otherwise, the quality of a final solution can be under threat.

You can hire a highly experienced developer with full-stack skills who will be able to take on the role of a technical leader. This specialist will be responsible for controlling software quality, monitoring existing processes and operations for detecting risks, and setting technical standards for the entire project.

There are several popular approaches to hiring specialists in the IT industry. All of them have their pros and cons. And all of them will be suitable for different situations. That’s why if you ask us about the best place to look for full stack developers for hire, we won’t be able to provide a definite answer. Nevertheless, we can tell you about different variants that you have when you need to find developers.

When somebody is thinking about how to hire developers, this option is probably among the most popular ones. It usually presupposes working with local specialists with whom you can meet offline. It can be a comparatively expensive model but it can be the best variant for long-term projects that will include further software support and maintenance.

Advantages of in-house hiring:

• Control over the process of project realization;
• Close cooperation with developers;
• Full understanding of the company’s goals and culture from the side of the team.

Disadvantages of in-house hiring:

• Time-consuming recruiting process (up to 2 months);
• Expenses on onboarding;
• Higher costs (equipment, bonuses, salaries).

Where to find in-house developers? You can look for such specialists on local or international job boards like Monster Jobs, Glassdoor, and Indeed. And it will also be a good idea to post a job ad on LinkedIn as it is a very popular platform among IT specialists.

Freelancers are self-employed specialists who work remotely. They usually do not associate themselves with a particular team and just provide their services by fulfilling the set tasks. It can be a good model for short-term projects.

Pros of working with freelance full-stack developers:

• Very quick hiring process;
• Lower costs (you will need to pay a set rate and won’t bear any additional expenses);
• Access to a global pool of talents

Cons of working with freelance full-stack developers:

• Challenges in project control;
• Potential barriers in communications;
• Lack of full focus on your project;
• Possible delays.

There are different platforms where you can look for freelance developers with relevant skills. They are Fiverr, UpWork, Behance, Guru, and others.

You can also hire a dedicated full stack developer or a whole dedicated team that will also include designers, QA engineers, and other specialists whose skills are required for your project. Dedicated developers will work remotely but will fully concentrate on your project and stay committed to its goals.

Pluses of working with dedicated full-stack developers:

• Full-time work on your tasks;
• Flexible team composition;
• Comparatively fast hiring;
• Cost optimization (no expenses on office rent or equipment).

Minuses of working with dedicated full-stack developers:

• The necessity to introduce high-quality project management;
• Possible issues due to different time zones and language barriers.

You can hire dedicated developers or a dedicated team by establishing cooperation with one of the professional software development companies that provide such services, like UMIND. You need to consider the offered terms and models of cooperation of such a company and make a conclusion on whether the suggested options are comfortable for you.

In general, we recommend you look for IT agencies on B2B directories such as GoodFirms, Clutch, or ITfirms.

This approach is known as staff augmentation and it allows you to quickly enrich your in-house team with new skills. In this case, remote developers can smoothly integrate into your team and fill in the existing gaps. But at the same time, officially they will stay the employees of the vendor and you will be able to avoid a lot of administrative, hiring, and onboarding tasks.

Arguments in favor of hiring remote full-stack developers:

• Lower recruitment costs and faster onboarding;
• An excellent option for both long-term and short-term projects;
• Simple team scaling;
• Flexible terms of cooperation;
• Possible cost optimization.

Arguments against hiring remote full-stack developers:

• Possible language barrier;
• Challenges caused by different time zones.

As a rule, staff augmentation services are provided by the same companies that can assemble dedicated development teams for you. That’s why if you need to hire remote full stack developers, at UMIND, we are always open to cooperation.

Now, when you have a general understanding of different hiring models, let’s focus precisely on the financial factor. Actually, we have three main options: working with freelancers, hiring full-time in-house developers, and establishing cooperation with a software development company (staff augmentation model or dedicated team model).

As a rule, freelancers have the lowest rates. And by hiring them, you do not need to bear any other expenses related to taxes, social benefits, paid sick leaves, equipment, office infrastructure, etc. Though this option may look very appealing from a financial perspective, you shouldn’t forget about the related risks and challenges.

In-house hiring may be the most comfortable option as in this case, your developers will be fully at your disposal 8 hours per day. But it is definitely the most expensive variant. You need to bear not only those expenses that are associated with headhunting, recruiting, onboarding, and salaries but also those that will be required for organizing training, providing bonuses and benefits, buying and updating equipment, etc. Moreover, in this case, you have practically no freedom in choosing the zone for hiring. As a rule, when you hire in-house developers you can look for them only in your city or country.

Working with a software development agency can become an optimal variant. As for the costs, it will be exactly in the middle between the two models mentioned above. It offers a wide range of other benefits, like flexibility and comparatively quick hiring. And what is even more important, you can avoid a lot of additional expenses like paying for office infrastructure or covering expenses related to the professional training of developers.

When you are estimating your possible expenses related to hiring a full stack developer, you also need to keep in mind that the rates of specialists may seriously differ in various regions. Moreover, those developers who have more skills and richer experience will also have higher rates in comparison to newcomers. Another factor that will influence rates is a tech stack.

For example, if we take the average salary of full-stack developers experienced in Node.js and AngularJS, a middle developer in Canada will get nearly $86K per year, in Germany, the salary of the same specialist will be around $67K, and in Lithuania, it will be $38K.

But if we take the figures of a middle developer who works with Python and Django, they will be different. In Canada, the salary will be $107K, in Germany – $64K, and in Lithuania – $41K.

It means that it is always required to take into account a lot of factors and to analyze the situation based on real-time data as the IT market is very dynamic.

If you want to hire and onboard excellent professionals, you need to pay attention to how all the related processes are organized. As a rule, experienced developers already know how other companies work with their employees and that’s why you should make sure that your approach corresponds to the industry standards.

What should you think about when you hire full stack developers?

Everything should be clear to newcomers from the very beginning. They should know what you expect from them and what they should do to start their journey at your company. It is very important to introduce a new person to the team, provide access to all the required tools and resources, and also assign a person who will be able to answer all the questions that a new developer may have. Sometimes companies also organize introductory workshops for newly hired specialists.

It is quite obvious that good specialists are always interested in the development of their skills and getting new knowledge. That’s why from the very beginning, you should explain what prospects a developer may have. For full-stack developers, it is important to know what projects they can work on, what tools will be available to them, and whether and when it will be possible for them to get a pay rise.

You, as a business owner, can also offer your in-house specialist various training and educational opportunities, including participation in professional seminars and conferences, as well as taking various courses for getting certification. Though it may require investment from your side, you should understand that you invest in your employees who will bring greater value to your business.

Now, to retain excellent specialists, high salaries may not be enough. You should also attract developers by providing them with various perks like flexible work hours, work from home, wellness programs, etc. The standards in the IT industry are high and you should regularly monitor the market in order to understand what your competitors offer to their employees.

When companies are going to start a software development project, quite often they face a dilemma: to hire in-house specialists or work with a full-stack development company that will offer the services of the required experts.

Of course, the decision here should be made based on a wide range of factors as there are no “one-size-fits-all” approaches. Every company and every project is unique which requires considering each case individually.

However, the idea to hire remote full stack developers at the agency can allow you to enjoy a wide range of benefits. And we recommend you analyze them when you are looking for a full stack developer for hire.

• Cost-efficiency

In the majority of cases, it will be more feasible for you to hire a dedicated full stack developer or to work with remote specialists in accordance with the principles of another business model. You will need to pay for the services provided to you by the company but all administrative costs, as well as costs of equipment, won’t be your responsibility. Moreover, in the case of in-house hiring, you will need to pay salaries to all your employees, even when you do not have any serious tasks for them. And when you work with an agency, you will pay only for the services that you need.

• Great flexibility

It is significantly easier to sign a contract with an agency than to find and onboard in-house specialists. Moreover, it is not challenging to introduce any changes in the terms of your cooperation. You can easily hire additional specialists or reduce the size of the hired team if it is required.

• Access to a wide pool of talents

Very often when you are looking for in-house specialists, your area of search is limited to your local market only. But while working with a professional agency, you can cooperate with specialists from different corners of the world and find experts with the rarest skills and niche knowledge.

• Focus on your core business activities

Thanks to the fact that you won’t need to deal with the tasks related to headhunting, recruiting, and onboarding, you will have more time to concentrate on your main business activities. All the rest will be done by your IT partner. At UMIND, we always do our best to facilitate as many tasks for our customers as possible.

• Reliability

A lot of businesses today prefer working with freelancers and without any doubt, this option may have a lot of advantages. But only when you work with a professional agency, you can be sure that the hired specialists won’t let you down, that they won’t disappear with a half-finished project, or that you will be able to continue working with them after the software release.

Though it can be an excellent plan to cooperate with full stack developer companies, you always should carefully think about whether this model is really the most suitable in your case. You will be able to enjoy all the related benefits only if this form of cooperation will be really the most appropriate one in your particular case.

UMIND presents a comprehensive solution to all your hiring predicaments, connecting you with programmers who possess a well-rounded knowledge stack. Our primary aim at UMIND is to swiftly and effectively provide you with a programmer who seamlessly integrates into your team and contributes to the advancement of your project.

The majority of our team members are veteran engineers, boasting verified technical acumen and adept communication proficiencies. Countless rapidly burgeoning startups entrust us. As such, entrusting your next full-stack developer hiring to UMIND allows you to embark on comprehensive development in as little as a week’s time.

The landscape is rife with disconcerting accounts of contractors deserting projects midway or independent full-stack developers vanishing unexpectedly, leaving clients in a lurch. UMIND offers steadfast support through our elite developers, all within the framework of the contractual developer hiring paradigm. In essence, we extend to you the ideal full-stack developer and facilitate diligent monitoring of their work hours and progression.

Here is a vivid comparison between hiring full-stack developers via UMIND and other popular channels.

Contact us to discuss the position requirements and we’ll send you the matched CV’s of the candidates.

The same is true about the formats of cooperation with software developers. If you are ready to change your corporate structure and you need the skills of full-stack developers for a very long period, you can look for in-house employees.
But when you do not want to deal with all headhunting and recruiting tasks and want to enjoy great flexibility, we highly recommend you consider working with a software development agency.

At UMIND, we have access to a wide talent pool and work with a rich tech stack. When it comes to terms of cooperation, we are absolutely flexible and always do our best to offer the most comfortable conditions.

Have plans to hire full stack developers to work on your project? Just contact us and share your requirements. We will deeply analyze your idea and prepare the best offer for you.