Menu menu mobile icon
10 MIN READ

How to hire freelance JavaScript developers in 2023

Updated on December 01, 2023
Platforms to find talented JavaScript developers
Toptal

What we liked the most:

  • World-class talent
  • Two-week trial period
  • No-risk engagements
Go to the site
Hired

What we liked the most:

  • Vetted developers
  • Short- & Long-term engagements
  • Different payment options
Go to the site
We Work Remotely

What we liked the most:

  • Easy job posting
  • Flexible pricing options
  • Distributes your jobs to partner sites
Go to the site
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

JavaScript is a powerful language that drives modern web development, and hiring skilled JavaScript developers is critical to success in this space. Our guide to hiring JavaScript developers includes a list of top recommended talent platforms, such as Upwork, Toptal, and Hirable, to help you find the right talent for your organization's needs.

Find the best site to hire the right JavaScript developers in under 60 seconds.

We'll ask 9 quick questions to better understand your needs and then provide you with personalized recommendations. No sign-up required.

1. What type of hire are you making?
Full-time employee answer
Full-time employee
One developer
Freelancer
Contract-to-Hire
Contract-to-Hire
Not sure answer
I'm not sure.
1 / 9

Here are the top 15 sites to hire freelance JavaScript developers:

Based on facts publicly available as of 01.01.2023

1. Toptal

Toptal is a matching service, initially created with tech talent in mind. Although they’ve expanded its expertise to include designers and finance experts, the company still specializes in front-end, back-end, and Javascript developers. If you want to be sure that a JavaScript developer is up to the job, then consider hiring a web developer with years of experience from Toptal.

Why? Toptal has expert freelance web developers across a variety of programming languages for web and app development. Their trademark system for vetting talent allows for only their best applicants to become a part of their community. According to Toptal, only 3% of applicants (including Javascript developers) make it through their battery of technical tests and their comprehensive vetting process. A project manager from Toptal can also form a specialized software development team to help with your project.

Key points:

  • Toptal’s worldwide talent pool makes finding niche skill sets easier.
  • You can adjust team members during your no-risk trial period.
  • Quickly make on-demand developer hires with Toptal’s flexible, scalable platform.

2. Hired

Hired helps employers find dedicated front-end and back-end developers, including JavaScript developers. On Hired, you can use their pipeline to find custom developer matches, no matter if you're in eCommerce, a startup, or an SMB that needs a few web pages updated.

Here you can create a company profile, search for candidates using their search algorithm (which can eliminate gender and racial identifiers for fairer hiring), and request interviews with experienced web development candidates.

Hired is great for finding specialized JavaScript developers with the technical skills who are actively searching for new opportunities, have relevant experience (as most candidates on Hired have at least two years of experience), and are potentially already in your area.

Key points:

  • Target candidates with matching work preferences, salary ranges, and skills.
  • Source qualified developers for small tasks or long-term, extensive projects.
  • The unlimited annual hiring subscription includes a dedicated account manager.

3. We Work Remotely

We Work Remotely is a job board dedicated to remote listings, including those for web developers. As a result of focusing on remote professionals, there is a high number of tech and tech-creative hybrid job postings, which include front-end web developer and JS developer positions. If you're looking to fill a remote position and are uninterested in recruiting local employees or freelancers, you may want to consider utilizing We Work Remotely.

Key points:

  • This platform distributes your job posts to 20+ partner networks.
  • Candidate filtering sorts and prioritizes applicants for your review, saving time.
  • Receive annual discounts for bundling multiple 30-day job posts.

4. Upwork

If recruiting services and job boards are not your first choice, you might want to consider a freelance marketplace like Upwork to find JS developers.

Upwork has one of the largest marketplaces of registered freelancers. Here you can hire web developers for a few simple coding tasks with Node.js or begin a long-term relationship with a series of complex Javascript projects. Independent development companies may also appear with their web services. If you like the idea of finding, interviewing, and managing freelancers, Upwork's marketplace will likely meet your needs.

Key points:

  • Identify the top 1% of Upwork Javascript developers by their Expert-Vetted status.
  • Use free Talent Specialists to source developers who completed comparable projects.
  • Upwork features fixed-price protection and secure payments.

5. Gun.io

Gun.io has a growing community of developers. Like Toptal, their service is designed to take the tedium out of hiring. Gun.io vets their talent to help ensure their freelancers are committed to each and every project.

Why choose this network? Gun.io manages and replaces talent – with no risk to you – they even back every single project with a satisfaction guarantee.

Key points:

  • Select hourly, contract, or permanent hiring options.
  • Senior engineers conduct live technical interviews during the vetting process.
  • Clients typically hire developers within 13 days, making this a relatively fast solution.

Guide to hiring great freelance JavaScript developers

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a programming language that conforms to the ECMAScript specification. Simply put, JavaScript is a high-level, just-in-time compiled, and multi-paradigm programming language. JavaScript is characterized as a curly-bracket syntax, dynamic typing, prototype-based object-orientation with first-class functions.

Overview of JavaScript Development

JavaScript is immensely popular given that it is widely used across frontend development and backend development. Recently, the introduction of Svelte, the “compiler framework” that disappears at compile-time, has made JavaScript a highly efficient code.

The advent of React, Vue, Angular, Backbone, and Ember, as some of the most popular front-end Javascript frameworks for developing web pages, has cemented the future of JavaScript for decades to come. On the server side, Node.js will continue to be the future.

Some of the best sites to hire JavaScript developers include Toptal, Arc, Gun.io, Fiverr, Upwork, and more.

Why is JavaScript Development So Popular?

JavaScript’s popularity dramatically increased because of Node.JS and the idea of “JavaScript everywhere” paradigm. This enabled unifying all web application development around a single programming language, rather than having a different language for server-side and client-side scripts. Here are some more reasons why JavaScript is so popular:

  • JavaScript is one of the most important and widely used programming languages.
  • JavaScript is the king of the web and the queen of the mobile.
  • JavaScript is a relatively easy programming language for learning.
  • JavaScript is versatile and dynamic for web and server-side development.
  • JavaScript has an excellent suite of frameworks and libraries.

Advantages and Challenges of JavaScript Development

Pros:

  • Speed: JavaScript is an interpreted language and a client-side script. This speeds up the execution of a program as it saves the time required to connect to the server.
  • Simplicity: JavaScript is easy to understand and learn.
  • Interoperability: JavaScript works perfectly with other programming languages.

Cons:

  • Browser Support: Different browsers interpret JavaScript differently.
  • Client-side Security: Since JavaScript code is viewable to the user, it is susceptible to malicious attacks.

Companies That Use JavaScript

To better understand the importance of JavaScript, take a look at these global companies using the programming language:

  • LinkedIn.
  • Netflix.
  • Uber.
  • Trello.
  • PayPal.
  • NASA.
  • eBay.
  • Medium.

These websites are a clear indication that JavaScript is here to stay.

What is a JavaScript Developer?

A JavaScript developer undertakes the responsibility of implementing the front-end logic that defines the behavior of the visual elements of a web application. A JavaScript developer is also responsible for connecting the front-end development with the back-end services.

How To Hire A Great Freelance JavaScript Developer

Essentially, there are three different options for hiring JavaScript developers: Hiring a full-time JavaScript developer makes sense if you are building an in-house web development or tech team. Hiring part-time Javascript developers extend the benefits of cost-efficiency and ROI. Hiring freelance JavaScript developers is a wise choice when you are looking to hire an expert developer for a particular project. Depending on the scope of the project and experience involved, Freelance JavaScript developers can be cost-efficient and provide a layer of flexibility that you don't have with regular full-time employees.

How Much Does it Cost to Hire Freelance JavaScript Developer?

The cost of hiring a full-time freelance JavaScript developer may differ from a part-time one. Having said that, there are certain factors that determine the cost of hiring a freelance JavaScript developer:

  • Complexity and scope of the project
  • The geographic location of the freelance developer and the employer
  • Expertise and experience level of the developer
  • Past work experience and brands they’ve worked with

JavaScript Developers on Upwork cost $15–$35/hr. An intermediate-advanced back-end JavaScript developer will cost around $35-100 + per hour, while a full-stack JavaScript developer can cost over $150 per hour.

What Skills to Look for Before Hiring a Freelance JavaScript Developer

The best JavaScript developers should know the basic Javascript frameworks, and also have experience with other programming languages such as Node.js.

Popular JavaScript frameworks include:

  • Angular.js
  • React.js
  • Vue.js
  • Ember.js
  • Meteor

Look for the following qualities in your freelance JavaScript developer candidates.

  • Strong technical proficiency
  • Experience with various JavaScript frameworks
  • Great communication skills
  • Ability to work independently
  • Strongly motivated and reliable
  • Depth in past work
  • Keen problem solving and coding
  • Excellent reviews and feedbacks

How to find a great freelance JavaScript developer for hire?

Finding the best sites to hire Javascript developers for your web application is no easy task. Unless you're a recruiter with years of experience, you will not always know what to look for when hiring a JavaScript developer. That's completely okay—there's plenty of sites and services to help you along the way.

Work with your development team and hiring managers to understand the type of frameworks your company uses, and how to find a JavaScript developer with those skills.

To hire JavaScript developers, matching services like Toptal, and to a lesser extent, Hired and Gun.io, are great solutions for employers searching for the right technical skills, and for those who are looking to place their trust in experienced tech professionals. For those short on time with high-quality developers as a priority, Toptal and Hired are superb choices.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are freelance marketplaces like Upwork, People Per Hour, and Freelancer that allow you to cast a much wider net for JavaScript developers.

Employers looking for full-time developers may also benefit from utilizing Stack Overflow and GitHub's job boards, which can provide wonderful exposure to the JavaScript developer community.

Freelance marketplaces like Upwork, Freelancer, and Guru allow you to instantly connect with developers, but you'll have to care for the hiring details yourself. If you have ample time to devote to screening candidates and are confident in your ability to interview JavaScript developers, they are a great choice.

Job boards, marketplaces, and development service companies all have their uses. Which site will best serve you will depend on your specific situation.

Ultimately, which sites you employ depends on a multitude of factors, such as:

  • How quickly do you need to hire a JavaScript developer (i.e. your timeline)
  • The type of developer: a dedicated JavaScript programmer or is a full-stack developer better suited for your web application
  • The type of JavaScript frameworks that you currently use
  • How much experience do you have hiring top JavaScript developers
  • Whether or not you're equipped to test technical skills
  • How many front-end developers and back-end developers do you need to bring on
  • What level of experience do those JavaScript developers need
  • Whether or not you're open to remote workers on your development team
  • What your budget constraints are for hiring software developers
  • How important quality is to your project(s)

Hiring JavaScript developers - FAQ

What are the required skills for a Javascript developer?
JavaScript is one of the most popular and important programming languages used today. Popular required skills for a Javascript developer include asynchronous programming, functional programming, writing cross-browser code, efficient memory management Stay up to date with the trends in the industry, clear communication, JavaScript instantiation patterns, clear understanding of time complexity, and basics of quality checks and testing.
How much do JavaScript programmers make?
According to research from Developers For Hire, JavaScript Developers earn around $64,000 for entry level programmers, $98,000 on average in the center, and $106,000 for senior developers.
Where can I hire a good JavaScript developers?
  • Toptal
  • Hired
  • We Work Remotely
  • GitHub Jobs
  • Authentic Jobs

Find more recommended sites to hire a JavaScript developer.

Please, rate this article