Top skills to look for in a MEAN stack developer
Software development is a business, and startups need to be able to hire people who are passionate about what they do. How do programmers go from being newbies to being top performers? What skills should a developer have to be considered the best of the best?
Here are some of the top skills that we associate with MEAN stack developers.
Lean Startup
Is your startup a lean startup? If so, this skill is designed to help you become a better entrepreneur. The concept of Lean Startup is all about developing in small steps and testing your ideas in the market at the earliest stage possible. It has attracted millions of people to startups because of its ability to ensure that you create value for your customers and reduce your costs as much as possible.
Passion for Technology
A MEAN stack developer is typically the type of person who is very knowledgeable about their technology. They either have a deep understanding of the principles behind their stack, or they’ve had a lot of experience working with different technologies. They know how to troubleshoot problems and fix bugs as they arise. These are both skills that make them great leaders when it comes to growing their startup and good mentors to other people in the development field.
UI/UX Design
Although your MEAN stack developer may not be a designer by trade, many of them are. While most of the time, these developers create the user interfaces for the apps that their businesses build. This skill is a must to communicate your design vision to others in your company and actually get it implemented. It’s rare, however, to see a good UI/UX Designer within a MEAN stack development team. This is usually because people who use these tools don’t know enough about design to set them up properly.
Node.js Ecosystem
While the MEAN stack is what your developer will be using to make the programs that you want them to, this doesn’t mean that they’ll just be using the JavaScript language. Node.js is actually a platform, which means that it has a lot of tools available. Your programmer will have at their fingertips libraries for working with data, communicating with databases and other services, and debugging applications. All these components allow for faster iterations on features, as well as helping you ship software faster—which is a good thing when you’re trying to beat the competition.
Time Management Skills
Programmers need time management skills to track their time on each project. This is especially true of the MEAN stack developers that we’re talking about here. They need to manage their time so that they can make sure that they’re not adding unnecessary features to their stack. This will allow them to make sure that they focus on what is most important and get a lot more done in less time.
Effective Communication Skills
Meaningful communication between team members is an essential skill for your developer. This is so important because technological advances are always happening at an incredibly fast pace. Unless you actively make sure to stay on top of these changes, you’ll end up being left behind by competitors who do so.
The above are some of the top skills for a MEAN stack developer to have. They’re very useful in both growing startups and creating value for your customers and yourself.