Evaluating a Full Stack Developer: Complete Guide
When recruiting for full-stack developers, you can’t roll the dice on hiring the wrong candidate. These professionals will be responsible for handling both frontend and backend development of a project, and inefficient practices from them might compromise the product quality and brand reputation in the market.
Therefore, you need effective hiring strategies in place to screen the skilled full-stack developers prior to onboarding them to your organization. So, in order to hire full-stack developers with utmost proficiency in the domain, you ought to introduce a comprehensive assessment capable of evaluating the candidate’s knowledge and skills in both frontend and backend development.
In this article, you will get a clear insight into different attributes you must take into account while hiring full-stack developers and how Ducknowl’s assessment can help you onboard the best candidates.
What are the Roles and Responsibilities of a Full Stack Developer Serve?
Before diving into how you can interview and assess a full-stack developer, it is important that you understand the roles a professional is destined to serve while holding this designation. So, a full-stack developer will be responsible for:
1. Building User Interfaces (UIs)
It is the prime job of a full-stack developer to create appealing, responsive, and intuitive UIs. They must be aware of the trending concepts and must produce designs that can establish a consistent user experience.
2. Integrating Front-End Features
For any project assigned, a full-stack developer will be responsible for integrating all the required or suggested front-end features in an app or website. Furthermore, they must also create CSS, JS, and HTML code for generating interactive components that can handle data presentation and user input.
3. Creating Backend Logics
Such developers are also required to build backend logic for any application or website development project they are working on. In the process, they will create the server-side code for handling the overall business logic, user interaction, data processing, and others.
4. Product Deployment and Continued Maintenance
From initial UI design to deployment, a full-stack developer will be immensely engaged across all stages. It is the job of the developer to ensure the product is deployed successfully into production and continues to run seamlessly. Beyond that, these professionals must also be proficient in monitoring the performance, managing the server, and optimizing the app or website performance.
5. Database Management
Being a full-stack developer, one must have a strong hold over databases and how to utilize them for development projects. Your developer will be in charge of administering the suitable database structure, building efficient queries, and maintaining the integrity & security of data.
What You Should Look for in the Resume of a Full Stack Developer?
Before moving on to evaluating the technical skills of a full-stack developer, you must screen the resumes of your applicants and shortlist the best profiles among them to take the hiring process further. Some of the things you must look for in the resume of a full-stack developer are:
1. Education
The educational qualifications should highlight a candidate’s enrollment in a software-centric course or academic program. Following the education, the resumes should also highlight any training or academic projects that the candidates have been part of.
2. Full Stack Development Experience
The resume should clearly state the amount of experience that an applicant has with both front-end and backend development. Not just that, but a brief detail on the projects they have worked on in the past will also be helpful for you to evaluate the level of expertise they hold in the domain.
3. List of Technical Skills and Technological Expertise
A clear elaboration on the technical skills and technological knowledge should be specified in the resumes. Skills with HTML, CSS, Python, Java, Node.js, SQL, Git, AWS, Docker, and others are appropriate for a full-stack developer role.
4. Projects & Portfolio
Look for a dedicated section in the resumes that highlights the projects that candidates have worked on in the past. Beyond that, you must also expect specified numbers to determine the impact of their work for specific projects.
5. Certifications
Alongside education and work experience, added certifications such as from Google. Microsoft or AWS can also be impactful in proving a candidate’s proficiency in the subject.
6. Soft Skills
Finally, look out for the soft skills they possess in order to be more collaborative and effective while working with a team of stakeholders, designers, and other developers. Observe how they rate themselves in the resume on the communication aspect, which is a vital trait for executing ideas and establishing seamless team communication.
What Technical Skills Must You Evaluate for a Full Stack Developer?
Beyond the roles specified above, a full-stack developer must possess the expertise to take on almost every stage of developing, deploying, and maintaining a website or application. Considering the level of proficiency required for this role, here are some of the skills that you must test in candidates before recruiting them for the role:
1. HTML & CSS
All candidates applying for the full-stack developer position must have a strong expertise in CSS and HTML. It is because these two technologies are responsible for the design & layout of any web app project.
2. Server-Side Programming
It is expected of full-stack developers to be exponentially proficient in server-side programming languages such as PHP, Python, or Java. Knowledge of these languages holds importance in crafting the backend infrastructure of any project.
3. Version Control
Version control tools are leveraged in the full-stack development process for managing code changes or collaborating with fellow developers. Your candidates must possess this skill in order to be qualified for the role.
4. Database Management
No application can run seamlessly without efficient management of the database. A full-stack development executive must have knowledge and expertise in handling both relational and non-relational databases, such as SQL and MongoDB, respectively.
5. Third-Party and API Integration
Being a full-stack developer, one should be able to design RESTful APIs and seamlessly integrate diverse third-party services. This way, a developer establishes easy communication for multiple software systems, guaranteeing seamless operations.
6. DevOps
A lot of your business clients might now be adopting continuous integration and deployment. Therefore, you would like to have on board a full-stack developer who understands DevOps practices and has expertise in using tools like Jenkins, Kubernetes, Docker, and others.
7. App Testing & Debugging
Almost every application requires robust testing to determine seamless performance, security, and functionality. Therefore, you must test your candidates to have experience in conducting integration, system, and unit testing. Efficient QA and debugging skills are non-negotiable when hiring full-stack developers.
8. Frontend Frameworks and Libraries
Your potential full-stack developer(s) must have a strong understanding and utilization experience of popular frontend frameworks and libraries such as React, Vue, or Angular.js. The use of these frameworks will enable your developer to create responsive UIs.
What Cognitive and Personality Traits Should You Look for in a Full Stack Developer?
Once you have evaluated the technical proficiencies of your candidates, you are halfway done finding the right person for the role. However, before you make that final call, it is better to assess a few important cognitive and personality traits, important for a full-stack developer to possess for better team collaboration and work productivity:
1. Analytical Skills
A full-stack developer must have strong analytical skills in order to understand the requirements specified by clients, debug complex development issues, and build robust applications.
2. Problem Solving
Full-stack development comes with its own set of complexities or challenges, demanding professionals to identify & resolve issues proactively. With a problem-solving mindset, your full-stack developer can overcome almost all coding challenges.
3. Team Player
Achieving success with a full-stack development project is a team effort! Therefore, it is paramount for you to test your candidates for effective collaboration and communication among team members, ensuring smooth execution of assigned tasks.
4. Creativity
The software industry runs on innovation, and a creative mindset is always appreciated in order to scale business operations. Your creative full-stack developer will be able to put up an innovative approach for complex development challenges.
5. Multitasking
Your full-stack developer must have a well-trained mind to handle multiple tasks or projects simultaneously, especially during peak business months. A candidate who is excellent at multitasking will guarantee enhanced focus and profound time management, both of which are crucial to derive productive outcomes in this domain.
6. Patience
Coding isn’t an easy task at hand, and it demands utmost patience and conscientiousness. Therefore, test your potential candidates for mindfulness and patience, as they are important for anyone to master full-stack development.
Use of Ducknowl for Assessing Full Stack
Ducknowl has several programming tests that can be used to assess a candidate for his/her skills in full-stack development. The purpose is to evaluate a candidate’s proficiency beyond the certifications, past experience, and educational qualifications specified in the resume.
When hiring for an important position like a full-stack developer, you must consider all variables involved. The initial screening of candidate resumes will give you a brief overview of those who satisfy the experience, education, and certification requirements.
Once the initial screening is done and relevant candidates are filtered from the crowd, a technical assessment should be assigned to them as the next step in the hiring process. These tests will have multiple-choice questions with the ability to grade the candidate’s experience level.
The ability to develop complex apps/websites, manage databases, troubleshoot security issues, provide ongoing maintenance, and perform other tasks will all be tested in a single unified assessment. Beyond that, this full-stack developer test will also evaluate candidates for their knowledge of JavaScript, Node.js, CSS, HTML, SQL, and other such technologies involved.
In short, Ducknowl’s programming test will help you in testing the candidates’ proficiency in:
- Frontend and backend development.
- Coding
- Troubleshooting and debugging
- Managing databases and maintaining data integrity
- Creating responsive interfaces
- Building scalable web applications
- Solving practical and unexpected problems in SDLC, etc.
Request a demo to get a more practical insight into the effectiveness of our assessment in hiring full-stack developers.
Conclusion
When you decide to hire full-stack developers for your organization, you are willing to invest in professionals who can handle high-ticket projects. Therefore, you must expect high-end technical proficiency, versatility in project handling, and a holistic development approach.
By leveraging the potential of Ducknowl’s comprehensive full-stack developer skill assessment, you can be sure of onboarding only the right candidates to drive organizational productivity. To learn more about our skill assessment, feel free to get in touch!
