How to Hire Good Flutter Dev

Recently Google announced Flutter 2, an open-source UI toolkit for building portable apps. Remind that the product was released 2 years ago with a focus on mobile. It had won the love of developers at once. Version 2 supports web and desktop apps out of the box, so Flutter users can now use the same codebase to build apps for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and the web. 

As we mentioned above, this solid framework allows creating cross-platform mobile apps with time-saving and reduced expenses.

So, you may wonder — how to hire reliable Flutter developers?

Here is a guide with the aspects to discuss with Flutter developers before starting cooperation. It covers valuable information like engineers’ skills, responsibilities, etc. Furthermore, we added options for hiring and interview questions to reveal a skilled Flutter developer.

Requirements to hire a Flutter developer

Flutter is a relatively new framework as Google released it in December 2018. Although, the community of Flutter developers has already grown to 2 million. The framework continues to evolve and offers intelligent solutions for cross-platform application development. Note that you will not find specialists with extensive experience in developing applications for this framework when recruiting Flutter developers. All of them will be junior (1-2 years) developers.

Therefore, we recommend evaluating candidates based on their previous experience in mobile app development. Knowledge of different development approaches will only be a plus. Of course, understanding the fundamentals of the Flutter framework should be there too. So they don’t have to study everything from scratch.

The general requirements to hire a Flutter developer will be:

  • 3+ years of experience in mobile development
  • 1+ years of experience in Dart (optional)
  • experience in one of the programming languages:
    • Java and Kotlin (Android)
    • Swift and Objective-C (iOS)
  • Knowledge of Flutter SDK, Android Studio and IntelliJ, Visual Studio Code
  • SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL databases
  • REST APIs
  • Experience with Git and Jira

A good specialist should also keep track of updates and changes in technology and know the current market standards. In addition to hard skills, Flutter developers should have soft skills to work as productive as possible.

Now you know what to look out for when hiring a Flutter developer. Let’s consider what the options for cooperation / hiring with developers are. 

How to hire Flutter developers?

Depending on the specifics of your business and project requirements, you can hire an in-house team, freelance developers, or a dedicated team.

In-house team

When you are developing a large project like Uber, the best choice is to put together your team. Its members will know the business’s specifics and share your views, and it will be easy to change the direction of the project as soon as it needs to be done.

In-house development is the most expensive option. It makes sense only if you can load the whole team with tasks in the long term.

The budget should include the costs of finding people and the manager’s time for interviews and training. And after the team is assembled, they need to provide jobs, equipment, insurance, sick leave, and vacations, take into account taxes and costs of administrative resources. The prices of maintaining a team can outweigh the benefits of controlling the situation and minimizing risks.

Freelance model

Imagine a developer who is simultaneously working on a shopping cart for an on-demand app and a chatbot and is forced to rush between these tasks. Therefore, the quality of the code and architecture on your project will remain in question even after launch. It is unlikely that the contractor will select a quality solution and think about optimizing the project.

Freelancing is by far the most economical option. It will take a lot of time to find suitable developers. You will have to choose between savings and quality guarantees, and if you need improvements or questions remain, you will have to look for someone else. In this case, it is challenging to check competencies, and unskilled developers can write bad code that will be expensive to redo.

Hiring a dedicated team

In such a cooperation model, you communicate with a manager who controls the process, works with performers, and will find specialists if additional tasks arise. You can choose a convenient task tracker and messenger, always organize a personal meeting and look the team in the eye.

Dedicated team members work together. They are aware of all tasks thanks to planning and code review. There is an opportunity to arrange a brainstorming, an internal meeting, and update the whole team’s statuses at once. This practice increases the involvement in the process, strengthens quality control, and provides an opportunity to verify intermediate results.

The project development cost is negotiated in advance and can be changed if additional work is required. The total price will be lower than in-house development since all the costs of recruiting, training employees, and organizing work will fall on the agency’s managers.

After launching the application, you need to maintain it, update the content, analyze user behavior, etc. Best of all, the team that created it will handle this already involved in the process and quickly make changes. With her, you can conclude a support contract for the period and the work that is needed.

Where to hire Flutter developers?

As soon as you’ve chosen a cooperation model suitable for your project, start searching for candidates. Here are some helpful resources for each model where you can find Flutter developers.

Freelance team:

  • Freelancer
  • Toptal
  • Upwork

Dedicated team:

  • Clutch
  • Good Firms
  • AppFutura

Extra sources:

  • Personal recommendations
  • Conferences
  • Developers forums

What to look for when choosing a contractor

Rate the development company according to the following criteria. This will protect you from an unscrupulous contractor, not waste money and not get a raw product as a result.

  1. Availability of similar projects

If a company has already made such an application, its specialists know all the pitfalls and understand how to optimize the process. It allows you to build on the experience of your predecessors and reduce development costs.

  1. Ranking/client portfolio

There are several reputable ratings for app developers, such as Clutch and GoodFirms. If a contractor is included in such a rating, there is a guarantee that in front of you is a real pro who thoroughly knows his business and who has experience working with serious customers.

  1. Client Reviews

Reviews from satisfied customers speak for themselves. But here, you need to be careful: you can write anything on your website or in your portfolio, which cannot be said about authoritative resources.

To sum up

Many mobile development companies are on the market, but it cannot be easy to find a reliable team. We in GBKSOFT hope that the described requirements and recommendations will help you save time when choosing a developer and release the application on time and without unforeseen situations.

Andrew Zhuravlov

I have 14 years of total experience in development, involving mobile, backend, and frontend stack. The Flutter experience is quite extensive, and it spans about 2 years. I have been working on many projects and gained expertise in rewriting existing apps with a lot of legacy code from Java to Flutter, and making fresh releases for both Android and iOS markets.