25 MIN READ

How to hire freelance Front-end developers in 2024

Updated on March 20, 2024
Platforms to find talented Front-end developers
Toptal

What we liked the most:

  • 98% Hiring Success
  • Fast Matching within 48 hours
  • Risk-Free Trial for up to 5 Days
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We Work Remotely

What we liked the most:

  • Easy job posting
  • Flexible pricing options
  • Distributes your jobs to partner sites
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Hired

What we liked the most:

  • Vetted developers
  • Short- & Long-term engagements
  • Different payment options
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Kelly Wilson
Written by Kelly Wilson

Strategist and entrepreneur, with experience in hiring developers across various industries. Kelly has established herself as a trusted expert in identifying and recruiting top tech talent. She shares advanced tips on how to identify the right talent, create hiring strategies, develop your tech teams and much more.

Expertise: IT Recruiting, Tech, Marketing

Craft captivating user interfaces that leave a lasting impression with skilled front-end developers. Our comprehensive hiring guide equips you with the knowledge and strategies to find the perfect front-end talent for your projects. Explore a curated list of top talent platforms, gain insights into evaluating coding skills and design expertise, and learn how to assess candidates effectively. With our guide, you'll assemble a team of front-end developers who can transform your ideas into visually stunning and user-friendly web experiences.

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Here are the top 5 sites to hire freelance Front-end developers:

Based on facts publicly available as of 01.01.2024

1. Toptal

Founded in 2010, Toptal is a leading professional freelance matchmaking platform that connects talented developers with top businesses and employers. Toptal was initially created with only tech talent in mind and currently boasts of an exclusive global network of highly talented frontend freelance developers. Toptal’s rigorous and stringent hiring techniques and high level of scrutiny ensure that only the top 3 percent of frontend developers.

From fortune 500 businesses to cutting-edge startups, Toptal’s developers are trusted by them all. Furthermore, Toptal offers a no-risk trial which makes it an interesting proposition for employers. If you want to be sure that a frontend developer is up to the job, hiring a developer from Toptal is likely your best option.

Key points:

  • Enjoy a risk-free trial for up to 5 days.
  • Completed over 60,000 projects for 25K+ satisfied clients.
  • Trustpilot rating of 4.8 out of 5.

2. We Work Remotely

One of the best sites to find web developers, UX designers, and programmers is a fairly well-known site, We Work Remotely. Finding freelance front-end developers, interns, and full-time employees is relatively easy on We Work Remotely.

If you're open to contracting remote front-end developers, We Work Remotely can be a great place to begin your search. You can screen all of the front-end development talent on your own, including responsive design for a web application.

Key points:

  • WWR manually sorts and filters applicants to give you the best matches.
  • Get discounts and other benefits by bundling multiple job posts.
  • 80% of WWR’s clients return, demonstrating customer satisfaction.

3. Hired

Hired enjoys a strong global presence across 14 global cities. Hired supports over 50 tech roles is widely regarded as a promising platform to hire tech experts and developers. Headquartered in San Francisco and founded in 2012, Hired offers some of the best frontend developers in the industry for hire.

Hired claims to help companies save over 45 hours of sourcing and recruiting per candidate. Hired’s AI matching platform and vast pipeline of software engineers and developers make it easy to hire skilled frontend developers.

Hired is great for finding specialized front-end developers, back-end developers, and full-stack developers who are actively searching for new opportunities, have relevant experience and are potentially located in your area.

Key points:

  • View developer work role and salary preferences for hiring insights.
  • Technical skills testing scores are visible on developer profiles.
  • Find suitable candidates yourself or use Hired’s talent-matching service.

4. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is largely regarded as the largest professional social media platform. However, LinkedIn is also an excellent platform to hire frontend developers from across the globe and across skillsets. LinkedIn’s massive database of job seekers and employers alike, makes it the perfect place to hunt for frontend developers.

Although vetting candidates and negotiating compensation is the employer’s lookout, LinkedIn’s secure messaging functionality, easy-to-use search filters, recommendations feature, and premium version make it a handy tool to hire frontend developers.

Key points:

  • Post jobs free or pay to promote listings.
  • LinkedIn can help you find candidates if you’re making multiple hires.
  • LinkedIn notifies developers similar to those you rate as a good fit.

5. Upwork

Upwork is a leading freelance freelance marketplace that boasts of over 12 million users. Upwork is a great platform to hire freelance frontend developers if you aren’t comfortable with recruiting services and job boards. Upwork connects employers with talented remote frontend freelancers, from HTML coders to JavaScript experts, with the help of sorting algorithms.

Numerous influential brands and businesses trust Upwork's frontend developers. However, as there is minimal screening done by Upwork, most of the screening and vetting process will be left to you.

Key points:

  • Check for talent badges and Expert-Vetted status to identify top developers.
  • Use Talent Scouts or free Talent Specialists to narrow your search.
  • Hire developers with hourly or fixed-price contracts.

Guide to hiring great freelance Front-end developers

What is front-end development?

Front-end development is taking the vision and design concept from the client and translating it into a customer-friendly interface through code. For example, everything that you see and interact with on a website such as buttons, animations, links, and more are created by a front-end developer.

The popular job board, Indeed, listed more than 6000+ job openings for front-end developers as businesses across sectors were keen to hire web developers for their projects.

Google shows steady and consistent growth in the search term over the past five years. The growing technical needs of many companies indicate that front-end development is still very much in demand and there’ll be a huge hiring demand.

Advantages and challenges of front-end development for businesses

Listed below are some of the popular advantages of front-end development that are encouraging businesses to explore the best sites to hire front-end developers.

  • Some of the latest technologies allow developers to build fast responding features and structures powering your app to respond, react and work fast.

  • Most modern frameworks and technologies are easy to use, learn, and scale.

  • With real-time programming, the web developer can make modifications in the browser without any fear of losing the status of the application and repetition of loading the browser pages.

While those are the advantages, here is the main challenge of front-end development for businesses.

  • It’s crucial to find quality front-end programmers so that you can be flexible and adapt you project to the always evolving markets

What is a front-end developer?

A front-end developer is an expert who ensures that website visitors have a positive experience when they visit a web page and that they are able to easily interact with the page.

A front-end developer does this through a combination of design, technology, and coding to design a website’s appearance along with taking care of all sorts of debugging.

How do you hire a front-end developer?

Research some of the best sites to hire web developers when looking for a new front-end developer. These sites do the necessary work needed to only offer candidates that have the qualifications and talent to do a good job for your business.

Hire the best freelance front-end developers and programmers

Consider the following factors when you’re looking to hire the best freelance web developer.

  • Do they have a portfolio highlighting that they can create design and user-focused experiences?

  • Do they have the skill to build personalized and customized features for customers?

  • Do they maintain up-to-date knowledge of industry trends and advancements?

  • Can they develop standard code that can serve as the foundation of future projects for your business?

  • Can they perform tasks accurately and up to a quality standard?

If the answer to all these questions is a yes, then you have a good candidate.

Another factor to consider when thinking about hiring a web developer is how active do you want this candidate to be? Should they work full-time or part-time? How about you hire freelancers and then take them on full-time. Each option has its pros and cons depending on your particular business needs.

Here are some benefits of going the freelance route:

  • You can work with more than one freelancer to see who fits your team well.

  • You can find someone who is an expert in what you do.

  • The best sites to hire web developers will only offer vetted profiles making them a good option.

How much does it cost to hire a front-end developer?

The average Front-End Developer salary in the United States is $119,224 as of February 25, 2022, but the salary range typically falls between $106,922 and $130,083. Salary ranges can vary widely depending on many important factors, including education, certifications, additional skills, the number of years you have spent in your profession. With more online, real-time compensation data than any other website, Salary.com helps you determine your exact pay target.

What skills/requirements to look for before hiring a front-end developer

Here are some key skills/requirements to look for before hiring a front-end developer:

  • A degree in computer science or a related field

  • Strong understanding of web markup, including HTML5, CSS3

  • Strong knowledge of server-side CSS pre-processing platforms, such as LESS and SASS

  • Basic knowledge of SEO principles and ensuring that the web application will be friendly to them.

  • Good understanding of how to determine the structure and design of web pages.

Choosing the right site to hire front-end developers

To find the right frontend developers, you first need to settle for the right platforms to begin your hunt. All the platforms mentioned above are great to hire talented developers. Before you decide which platform to choose, answer the following basic questions:

  • What is the timeline of your project?
  • How quickly do you need to hire a frontend developer?
  • How much experience or talent levels do you require from the developer?
  • How many coders do you need?
  • How important is quality for your project?
  • What is the complexity of your project?
  • Are you okay with remote workers or outsourcing to another country?

As Krishnan Unni, Senior developer at VMware noted “A quarter of all web developers work from the comfort of their home! Yes, many companies do allow developers to work remotely.” 

  • What is your budget?
  • What is the reputation of the platform and its developers?

Once you answer these questions and select the right platform, you will need to identify what technical skills you’re looking for from a front-end developer?

You will need a front-end developer who understands the different programming languages, including CSS, PHP, HTML, and Javascript among other front-end technologies. They will also need to know about the different frameworks for your web application.

Ideally your front end developer should be skilled in jQuery or AngularJS or React or other HTML frameworks to create Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and enterprise web applications. Determine which programming language and skills your project requires, and then choose a front-end developer who has that ability.

Matching services like Toptal make for a great platform to hire frontend developers, given the rigorous screening and vetting process. Having said that, all other platforms are also great to hunt for your next frontend developer.

Hiring Front-end developers - FAQ

How much do front end web developers make?

The average salary for an entry-level web developer in the United States is $47,509 per year. This number increases to $54,793 for a junior front end developer, and $74,720 for a web developer (unspecified), and $99,085 for a senior web developer. Compare web developer salaries for different programming languages.

How much does it cost to hire a web developer?

As one might expect, web developer jobs in urban areas pay more than nonmetropolitan areas. Top paying states for web developers, such as California, report an annual mean wage of $86,160, well above the national average of $69,430. Hire a web developer using these recommended sites

Where can I hire a front-end developer?
  • Toptal
  • We Work Remotely
  • Hired
  • GitHub Jobs
  • Stack Overflow

Find more recommended sites to hire a Front end developer.

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