Top JavaScript Development Companies
Top JavaScript Development Companies and Agencies for startups, B2B, SMB, enterprise, SaaS and small business. Web development agencies in San Francisco (SF), Dallas (TX), New York (NYC), London, Los Angeles (LA).
Last updated: July 2, 2024
Javascript is the key component in creating a modern, dynamic web site. According to Mozilla, “JavaScript is a scripting or programming language that allows you to implement complex features on web pages — every time a web page does more than just sit there and display static information for you to look at — displaying timely content updates, interactive maps, animated 2D/3D graphics, scrolling video jukeboxes, etc. — you can bet that JavaScript is probably involved. It is the third layer of the layer cake of standard web technologies” (along with HTML and CSS).
As a result, a lot of web developers “know” JavaScript. At least a little. For more complex features and involved features, you may want a developer who specializes in JavaScript or has extensive experience building sites with less common uses of the scripting language.
1. Rootstrap
📍Los Angeles, CA
👤 Top clients
Salesforce, Spotify, Epson
4. Imaginary Cloud
📍London, United Kingdom 🇬🇧
👤 Top clients
Nokia, BNP Paribas, Sage
Thoughts on hiring JavaScript Developers and Agencies:
Planning
As with any project, things will go more smoothly with a little upfront planning. Having a clear understanding of what you need increases your likelihood of finding the right developer as well as minimizing missteps along the way.
Project Requirements
If you’ve gotten this far, you already have some ideas for features, and think (or know) you need help with implementing them. If you don’t already have your functional requirements documented, do so now. Think about how the site should work, and how users should be able to interact with it.
- What is the purpose of the site (ie Ecommerce, mapping, etc.)?
- What are the features you need built?
- What other features will this feature interface with?
You may even have technical requirements sketched out, which is even better. Work closely with your development team to establish a list of skills and tools that will be needed to execute your project within your development system and on your published site. Elements to consider include:
- Do you need a developer familiar with advanced JavaScript libraries and frameworks such as AngularJS, ReactJS, or DurandalJS?
- Are you using particular code versioning tools, build tools, or development tools that require special knowledge?
- Is there any other specialized skill, tool, or knowledge required for the project?
Job Description
https://www.toptal.com/javascript/job-description
Searching
Choose a Hiring Platform
For small or temporary projects, hiring a freelancer can be a cost-effective way to access talent as needed. If you have a more long term need, following your company’s contract or direct hire processes are best. Top freelance platforms typically charge fees for posting or hiring on their platform, but do a lot of the rest of the work for you, including handling payments, and protect you from paying for work that doesn’t meet agreements or never gets done at all. They protect freelancers as well. Each site works a little bit differently so check out a few for rates/fees, number of freelancers in the area you need help, reviews from other companies and from the freelancers themselves. A few top choices for programming jobs include:
You can also consider hiring a reputable web design company or a website design agency.
Price Appropriately
In order to hire the best talent within your budget, make sure that you target a competitive rate. Depending on the requirements you defined previously, you may not need the most senior developer out there, but you still want to find a reliable, professional hire. Pricing your project fairly for the level of talent will help you find candidates that are trustworthy.
On the other hand, if you do want or need a more experienced developer, you should know what they are worth and be prepared to budget the project accordingly. Sources such as Upwork, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter indicate that JavaScript Developers charge in these ranges:
- Junior: $25–30 per hour
- Intermediate: $40–60 per hour
- Advanced: $75–100 per hour
Additional factors can influence rates including location and market. If you are using an online platform, these factors have less impact but keep them in mind if you are hiring locally.
Seek Out Top Developers
Most freelance platforms allow you to search for freelancers, and offer top rated listings to help you target talent. This way, you don’t have to wait for them to come to you. For example, Upwork has a Top Rated JavaScript Developers page. Some platforms also offer premium services to assist in locating top talent to help you get the right mix of experience, ratings, and budget.
Interviewing
Once you’ve gotten five or more submissions to your job posting, do a quick screening. You can check out their profiles, proposals, and any additional information they’ve provided such as a resume or work samples.
Using the criteria you put together in the planning step, select at least three candidates to interview. Toptal offers some great advice on what to look for in any developer and suggests these steps.
Set up interviews with each of your top candidates, by phone or video call if necessary due to location or other circumstances. Layout a clear plan including non-technical questions, possibly a technical challenge, and next steps. At the end of the interview, be sure to let the candidate know what to expect moving forward including whether you have additional interviews to complete, when you expect to make a decision, and what will happen if they are selected.
References and Samples
At some point, either before or after your interviews, you should check your three candidates references and work samples. Checking these things out before the interviews can help you tailor your interview questions to their work.
Some freelancing platforms allow freelancers to provide examples, or they may have included related work in their proposals. You can also look at their ratings and reviews from past clients. If you aren’t finding much through the site, be sure to ask the candidate for references and links to work they’ve done during the interview.
Questions to Ask
When interviewing candidates, treat it how you would treat a direct hire. Just because this is a temporary role doesn’t mean you can skip important steps such as screening for reliability, professionalism, and communication skills. In this type of role, these non-technical aspects can be even more important to ensure your project gets delivered on time, on budget, and meets or exceeds the requirements. Some questions to consider:
- Tell me a little about yourself.
- How do you plan your day/week?
- Do you ever take on more than you can handle?
- How do you handle conflict?
- How do you feel when you can’t follow through on a commitment?
When asking these questions, pay attention to more than just what they say. Behavioral questions can reveal more in their non-verbal response than the verbal one. For example, people who truly care about meeting commitments will visibly shrink down and change tone when they think about missing a deadline or disappointing a customer. You can find more common questions for screening, behavioral, and other types of questions at sites like Monster.com.
Technical Challenges
Asking candidates to complete a challenge can be a great way to see how they work and perform under controlled circumstances. These types of challenges are pretty standard and most candidates will expect to complete one. Some technical hiring managers and experts recommend skipping this step, particularly in more creative roles, but it can help get a feel for each candidate and how they handle things.
If you aren’t technical yourself, or not familiar with creating a technical challenge, you can find and even administer one online through sites like hackerrank.com, projecteuler.net, and beatmycode.com.
As with all the steps, make sure you have an idea of what type of outcome you want from this challenge. Think about more than just the output of the challenge, how did they approach the problem? How creative were they in finding a solution? Did they find an elegant solution to the challenge, or just get it done?
Hiring
At the end of the interview process, one or more of your candidates should be standing out as a great fit for your needs and culture. If not, or you have more than one great candidate, you may need to go back to your list of candidates to conduct more interviews, or bring in a colleague for a second round of interviews. Then, you can make your decision.
Congratulations! You found a great Javascript Developer! Now you can hire them. If you are using a freelancing platform, you’ll need to follow their hiring process. Be sure to prepare a written scope of work, set up delivery deadlines, and document any particulars regarding delivery and collaboration. Don’t forget to follow up with the other candidate that you interviewed letting them know that you’ve selected another candidate.
Conclusion
With clear expectations defined for both you and your developer you are now on your way to creating an amazing user experience design with an expert agency. Have you hired developers on freelance platforms? Tell us what your best interview questions are!
