Mobile apps have given a paradigm shift to the way the companies conduct and market their businesses. Most of the companies nowadays understand that mobile apps are a great way to connect and interact with their users and target audience and they want highly-functional, superior, visually appealing and responsive mobile apps that perform excellently.
Android is one of the most used mobile operating systems and has carved a niche for itself by offering some superior benefits to the users. As per the report, android accounts for almost 85% of total mobile sales.
If you want to design a mobile app for your business, you have to ensure that you hire an android developer for your project who has a proven track record and years of experience and expertise in the domain.
It is not cool to hire any rookie for the project as it might jeopardize your project and can turn up a complete waste of your money and efforts. Hiring an expert will make things smooth sailing for you. All you need to do is to consider some tips before hiring android developer.
In this article, we will discuss some of the tips to hire an android developer in brief. At the end of the article, you will have a pretty clear idea about which qualities to look for while hiring an android developer.
Hire an android developer who is experienced
One of the key things to look for while hiring an android developer is to check the experience. An expert android developer with years of experience will be a good choice as he will know the market flows and latest technologies and tools to make market-centric apps. Also, when you are looking for an android app development company, always check its portfolio before proceeding to ensure that the firm has accomplished several projects in the same platform.
Have a good sense of product behaviour
You are not looking for just random technical brain, you are looking for an android app developer who has sound knowledge about the product and can contribute when it comes to product design. The worst bet is when the developer is completely depended on the product manager when it comes to product design.
It is not something fruitful. An expert android app developer must have at least some understanding of product design. Ask while hiring an android app developer about product behaviour and whether he has some relevant experience in it or not.
You might find a typical page very simple and easy to build such as sign up page. For laymen, the sign-up page is all about just user name and password, but in reality, it has many variables such as an authentication method, validation checking, skipping the page for members and other crucial details.
When you hire an android developer, he must have an idea about the same and should be able to come up with new ideas and suggestions for different pages to make the app more robust, attractive and functional. It is a primary quality that an expert android app developer must possess.
Hire a developer who possesses sheer expertise in UI and Material Design
Users prefer visually stunning mobile apps rather than apps with poor graphics. In addition to that, you also need to know that user interface is just not about graphics, it is much more. An ideal user interface is all about a simple and user-friendly interface, stunning design and superior use of colour and texture.
In addition to that, during the development process, the design might change and a developer has to work on to adjust the UI due to new features and functionalities.
If you hire designers every time some change happens, it might cost you more. Thankfully, Android has some splendid libraries and tutorials to rely on. The main condition is the developer you hire should have adequate knowledge about these libraries and tutorials.
Material Design concepts were introduced by Google a few years ago and these concepts support new smartphone devices. With the use of these Material Design concepts, android developers can come up with robust apps that look way more professional and sophisticated and fast.
Hire an android developer who knows how to deploy the app on Google Play Store
One of the main drawbacks of hiring a rookie is that when the time comes to deploy the app on Google Play Store, they are clueless. Deploying app on the play store is not like putting books on the shelf. There are many tasks one needs to fulfil to successfully deploy the app on play store. If you have hired an app developer who has done such deployment in the past, it will make things easy and streamlined for you.
For example, a tool called Proguard that removes unnecessary libraries and classes from the app and make it more small, fast, efficient and safer. However, only an expert developer can use Proguard as it is not an easy process. If you have a rookie developer, the task might not complete.
Also, when you are releasing an app, you need to sign a file that has a hash key and that reveals that you are the owner of the app. It is a crucial file as you cannot make any updates without this file. An experienced professional developer will know this thing and he will make sure that the file is saved at a safe place. Also, when it comes to security and backups, an experienced android developer makes things easy and streamlined.
There are some excellent features Google app store offers to you such as language selection for the app. However, if the android app developer does not have any idea about such superior features, it will take you nowhere. It is the reason you need to hire an android developer who has years of experience and expertise in deploying mobile apps on play store.
Hire an android developer who has at least one app of his own on Google Play Store
Checking out the portfolio of the android app developer is very crucial before hiring him. However, when you ask for it, ensure that the developer has at least one app of his own on the Google play store. Download the app and check out how it is to make a final decision.
Ideal developers will proudly show their work when they meet you. However, if they don't, ask them to show it.
If the developer has apps on Google Play, it simply means that he is a professional individual who loves to make android apps. Not just that, it also means that he knows how to develop and deploy the app on the play store. Such developers are your best bet for the project.
Hire a Full Stack Developer
Database management and maintenance are very important for mobile apps as they use such databases for various functionalities. If the developer you have hired does not know database management, you have to hire an additional database manager for the project. It might pile up your costs. It is better to hire a full stack developer who also specializes in database management and has experience in a particular domain.
Hire an android developer who updates you about the process regularly
Yea, it is your idea and you know it better than anyone and you certainly want to implement your ideas and suggestions in the app. An ideal developer knows this thing and they will ensure that you get daily or weekly updates about the processes and operations to get your invaluable inputs. However, some developers don't find this practice worthy enough. Get rid of them as soon as possible. No matter how experienced a developer is, if he fails you at this point, just switch to someone else.
Conclusion
Hiring an android developer is a key thing to ensure that the android app development project runs smoothly and gets completed without any hindrances and issues. If you follow these aforementioned tips before hiring android developer, you will probably not have any issues during the app development process. Make sure to hire an android developer who has a proven track record and a sound portfolio, to begin with.
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