How to Hire a Full Stack Engineer

Overview

As the title suggests, a full stack Engineer can work across the entire technology stack, including the frontend and backend. As enterprises look to build more sophisticated and feature-rich applications, full-stack Engineers are a valuable addition to their application development team.

Here is everything you need to know about how to hire a full stack Engineer.

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Who is a Full Stack Engineer?

To help businesses expand, AWS provides a variety of services such as space for storing databases, processing power, content distribution, and networking. You get to pick your own solutions and only pay for the ones you use. With AWS, you can save money without sacrificing the efficiency of your applications, making it a cost-effective solution.

A Full Stack Engineer is a technical professional who has the skills to work on server-side (or backend) and client-side (or frontend) applications or platforms. Apart from these technical skills, full stack Engineers are adept at incorporating new technologies and frameworks into an existing development environment.

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Thanks to their frontend and backend skills, full stack Engineers have complete visibility into the entire development platform. Additionally, they are proficient in programming languages like JavaScript, SQL, and HTML to develop user-friendly applications.

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Next, let’s see when you need to hire a Full Stack Engineer for your company.

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When You May Need a Full Stack Engineer

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There are multiple benefits for software development companies that hire a full stack Engineer. With the growing shortage of skilled Engineers, companies can save both time and money by hiring Engineers who are skilled in the full stack of the latest technologies. This is also more efficient than hiring separate frontend and backend Engineers to perform different roles. A Full stack Engineer works on every part of the development project, thus coordinating all functions and tasks.

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Here are some of the roles and responsibilities of full stack Engineers:

• Designing the frontend and backend architecture in any development environment.
• Implementing software projects using different languages.
• Working with a host of resources including web applications, databases, cloud storage, network resources, and backend server.
• Monitoring the performance and efficiency of web applications.

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Why should organizations look for full stack Engineers for hire? Let’s discuss that next.

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Why Hire a Full Stack Engineer?

A Full stack Engineer can help with building scalable and distributed solutions that provide a positive user experience and ensure business growth. Full stack Engineers have multiple technical skills, thus helping you save both recruitment time and costs.

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Here are some of the capabilities of full stack Engineers that can benefit your organization:

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• Diagnose any frontend and backend issues, thus enabling a faster resolution.
• Provide flexibility for developing the necessary infrastructure for any application.
• Implement complex projects right from design to the deployment stage.
• Work on new product features in the face of changing business requirements.

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For instance, you can hire a full stack web Engineer to develop both web and mobile apps with the latest user-friendly functionalities. A full stack web Engineer is skilled in web-friendly programming languages like Ruby on Rails, Nginx, and SQLite.

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Next, let’s discuss what skills and qualifications you should look for in a Full Stack Engineer.

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Skills and qualifications to look for in a Full Stack Engineer

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If you are looking to hire a dedicated full stack Engineer in your organization, here are the skills and qualifications to look for in job candidates:

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• Frontend tools and technologies like HTML, HTML5, JavaScript, JQuery, and CSS3
• Backend tools and technologies including Ruby on Rails, Django, ASP.NET, PHP, React, Angular 2, .NET, and Node.js
• Database systems including MySQL, MongoDB, CouchDB, and MS SQL
• Version control systems including GIT, Grunt, Xdebug, and Subversion
• Project management tools including JIRA, Basecamp, Trello, Redmine, and Teamwork
• Technology stacks including MEAN Stack, MERN Stack, and LAMP Stack

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Besides these technical skills, a Full Stack Engineer must be qualified in:

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• Building large-scale software and web applications.
• Designing and integrating RESTful APIs.
• Performing debugging and optimization.
• Performing unit and integration testing.

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If you are running your applications on Amazon Web Services (AWS), then an AWS full stack Engineer must be proficient in services including:

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• Amazon EC2 (for backend apps)
• Load balancers (to work with backend applications)
• AWS Route53 DNS (for users to locate your applications)
• Amazon S3 (for storing files)
• CloudFront CDN (for faster delivery of assets)
• Amazon RDS (to store your database information)
• Amazon ECS and ECR (to run backend applications on a container)
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk (to simplify the deployment of web applications to AWS)

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Additionally, qualified candidates must possess professional certificates and be open to learning new tools and technologies. 

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How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Full Stack Engineer?

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If you are looking to hire a dedicated full stack Engineer in your organization, the average salary is in the range of $100,000 to $105,000 in the U.S. The starting salary of an entry-level full stack Engineer is around $90K annually.

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The average hourly rate of a full stack Engineer in North America ranges between $81 to $100. For experienced full stack Engineers, the hourly rate can go as high as $160. On freelancing platforms like Upwork, hourly rates for full stack Engineers range from $16 to $35 (depending on their industry experience and the number of successful projects).

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Next, let’s look at the top interview questions when you want to hire a full stack Engineer.

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Top Interview Questions to Ask When Hiring a Full Stack Engineer

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Here are the top 15 interview questions to ask when you are hiring a Full Stack Engineer:

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1. Which are the different technology stacks that you have worked on?
2. How do you define full stack development?
3. Describe a web application that you build and what technologies did you use.
4. Which frameworks, languages, and technologies will you use to implement a complete project in one month?
5. Explain the process of normalization and denormalization.
6. How do you increase the scalability and efficiency of any website?
7. How do you avoid callbacks in the Node.js framework?
8. Which is the best programming language for full stack development and why?
9. How do you keep track of the latest updates in full stack development?
10. Describe a typical day as a full stack web Engineer in your previous organization.
11. What is the purpose of multithreading and how is it used?
12. What is pair programming – and have you ever used it?
13. What are an MVC and MVP – and how are they different from each other?
14. How do you handle inefficiencies found in another Engineer’s written code?
15. What does ACID mean in database systems?

Conclusion

Both technology start-ups and development companies are looking to hire full stack Engineers to integrate their frontend and backend functions. To achieve the best returns, companies must hire full stack Engineers from the right hiring platform to avoid any project delays and cost escalation.

Through this guide, we hope you have gotten the right information that will help you hire a full stack Engineer to match your project requirements. At Cloudhero.es, we can help you source the right technical resources at the right time and price. If you are looking for our services, schedule an appointment with us today.