Ionic is an open-source UI toolkit that deals with hybrid mobile application development. It’s used for building modern high-speed apps that perform smoothly across platforms such as iOS, Android, and Windows. One of the best things about Ionic is its ability to seamlessly work with the best frontend frameworks, including Angular, Vue, and React—it can even work with a project that has no framework. Moreover, Ionic supports touch-optimized gestures, hardware-accelerated transitions, and pre-rendering to deliver a faster experience on all the latest mobile devices.
In the current era, Ionic marks its significant presence as one of the leading platforms for developing hybrid mobile apps. The framework receives continuous updates to always remain one step ahead of its competitors. Unlike its counterparts dealing with more commercial products, Ionic is still free to use and offers open-source software development kits (SDKs).
Demand for Ionic development continues to increase with each passing day and it’s becoming popular as one of the best frameworks for hybrid mobile app development. However, hiring a skillful Ionic developer is still a challenge, as it requires a developer with a flexible mindset and specialization in HTML, CSS, Angular, and UI/UX prototyping.
Job Description
Responsibilities
Before looking to hire an Ionic developer, companies must understand the responsibilities required for the job. The foremost responsibility of an Ionic developer is the building of hybrid apps capable of running across multiple platforms. Ionic developers should have the ability to identify and use suitable plugins and tools usually required in the development phase.
Adding to that, an Ionic developer must know how to utilize web technologies, such as AngularJS, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, to build cross-platform apps. The developer should have a thorough knowledge of these technologies to eventually use them in the best way possible for developing hybrid apps.
Another crucial responsibility of an Ionic developer is the integration of the backend services with Ionic for applications. This intervention makes it easier for the application users to fetch data from a remote server by making appropriate changes in the database.
In addition to developing high-performing and well-tested applications across platforms, additional responsibilities for Ionic developers include:
- Collaborating with team members in an Agile environment
- Working with product and user experience teams to collaborate and further understand customer or business requirements
- Applying any required corporate tech standards, policies, and procedures to their work
Skills and Qualifications
In development, it’s the right people that make all the difference. For this reason, selecting developers with the right skill set, qualifications, and experience is crucial for project success. Whenever the need arises to start the recruitment process, businesses must make sure to use technical criteria to recruit and hire the best talent.
Cordova, a set of protocols that enable web-based code to run as a native app on various mobile platforms, is the basis of the Ionic system. A candidate for the position of an Ionic developer must have experience with Cordova in their time as a developer.
Ionic developers should also have a solid command over the necessary frameworks that go with Ionic like AngularJS, React, and Vue.js. They require an understanding of how these technologies work across multiple platforms and assist in optimizing unique mobile UI requirements.
Now more than ever, the UI/UX design of a mobile app plays a vital, if not the most important, role in its success. For an Ionic developer, it’s necessary to have a strong knowledge of UI/UX design, including navigation, layouts, gestures, and animations. Ionic developers should also have a solid grasp on utilizing UI components of Ionic, which include Checkbox, Badge, Alert, Button Chip, and so on. They must also have hands-on knowledge of API indexing and are well aware of the newly introduced components—Accordion and Breadcrumbs.
Ionic developers must have rather extensive experience with Command Line Interface (CLI). They should have a clear understanding of its default server, helpful commands, and debugging tools.
The Ionic framework provides the liberty to use a wide range of plugins, which means that developers specializing in this tech must understand how to use Ionic Native plugins. Plus, they should have good knowledge of iOS design language, iOS UIWebView, and Android UIWebView plugins.
To ensure a quality work output, Ionic developers should know the fundamentals of all the major Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). They should know how to use Android Studio, XCode, and Webstorm. Experience with the Visual Studio Code Ionic extension pack is always a great addition as well.
Ionic experts typically also have previous experience with external and third-party integrations, which are always beneficial for the hiring company. A good Ionic dev should know to maximize web services, Google Maps, and in-app purchases in their products.
Interview Questions
Candidates interviewing for the role of an Ionic developer should have the ability to answer a variety of interview questions with ease. Below are just a few examples of what these questions typically entail.
What is the function of the Ionic component ion-infinite-scroll?
The infinite scroll permits one to execute an action when the user makes a movement with the mouse/finger to a certain distance either from the bottom or top of the page.
What’s the purpose of the ion-refresher component in Ionic?
The refresher component delivers pull-to-refresh functionality on a content component.
How do Ionic apps access native phone functionality such as the camera?
Devs utilize the Cordova plugin to install and use a native or in-app camera within an Ionic application.
What are the prerequisites of installing the Ionic framework?
To install Ionic, the project requires the following items:
- Code Editor
- Node.js and NPM
- Ionic CLI
How do devs rename an Ionic app?
To rename an Ionic app, one must open the config.xml file from the project’s root directory and update the value inside the name tag.
Hire Ionic Developers Today
Companies looking to hire an Ionic developer via staff augmentation or an entire Ionic team need to look no further than BairesDev. Our teams are ready and waiting to assist with Ionic projects of all sizes.
