Introduction

For the digital users of today, smartphones are constant companions. From checking out sports scores to ordering food online and reading news headlines on its small screen, people rely heavily on this wireless device for daily activities. As per the latest report by Statista, nearly 6.4 billion people have an active subscription to smartphones, which is likely to reach 7.5 billion in 2025. The figure shows that businesses need to focus dramatically on making and keeping their websites responsive to stay relevant to their digital consumers. For this, they need to hire responsive design developers who can ensure that sites are compatible with different smartphone layouts.

A responsive design developer is skilled at understanding the varied dimensions of smartphones and designs the website layout to fit within those specified measurements. The need for businesses to hire responsive design developers stems from their requirement to grow in the evolving digital era and win customers who are reliant on phones for their purchases.‍

Introduction to Responsive Design Developers

The process of making web pages and websites render accurately on different size devices and monitors is called responsive designing; the person who designs the layout of the webpage to ensure this compatibility is a responsive design developer. Their work is to take reference from the actual website that is already up and running in the desktop version and compress the web elements of the site to fit it within the specified measures of different device sizes.

To hire a responsive design developer that understands different devices and their functions, enterprises should focus on a few factors. The first is to make a list of devices (smartphones, tablets, digital pads) and their operating systems to launch their responsive website. Not every device would be required for your venture, which is why it is essential to know what kind of responsive design you would need before you hire a responsive design developer with certain skill sets. Alongside, organizations must also focus on narrowing down their requirements by hiring a responsive design developer to ensure their specific business needs are met.

However, there are other functions of a responsive design developer equally important to the hiring business.

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Functions of Responsive Design Developers

• Design website layout to become compatible with varied device sizes.
• Develop site designs that respond to user behavior and environment based on device size and its operating platform.
• Ensure to accommodate resolution, image size, and scripting abilities as the user changes from one device to another.
• Check the phone settings and VPN status to ensure that the user’s access to the webpage is not blocked.
• Must always design a responsive website that responds automatically to the user’s preferences and device settings.
• Must understand different technologies to design the responsive site, such as eliminating the need to re-design it for every new device.
• Understand the maintenance requirements of the existing developer responsive web page for adding the latest features and web elements to the design.

Why Do You Need to Hire a Responsive Design Developer?

Although the answer to this might seem obvious, there are several essential reasons why a business needs to hire a responsive design developer. These can vary from the need for developing a responsive version of the website for the first time to maintaining the site that is already up and running in responsiveness. Here are all the various reasons for to hire responsive design developers for your online presence:

• To make the webpage future-proof for upcoming device dimensions.
• To ensure that the webpage is scalable to fit within different device sizes, such as tablets, digital pads, mobile phones, laptops, and full-size desktops.
• Design and launch a mobile application of the website that accommodates all the different and essential web elements without breaking under various smartphone dimensions.
• To keep up the performance and speed of the responsive website with updating versions of Android and iOS.
• To save money and time on building a team and finding skilled individuals.
• To help integrate high-quality web design for your responsive site with the best SEO practices.
• To continue maintaining and updating the responsive design without understanding the code as it is written and designed by them.
• To help the enterprise develop strategies and ideas to keep the responsive website designs up and running as per the latest updates and market standards.

Technologies and Skills for Responsive Design Developers

Businesses are aware of the different reasons why responsive design developers add value to their operations. But they also need to know the various skills types these individuals must possess to hire the talent that best fits their requirements. There are two types of skills every responsive designer needs to acquire over the course of their educational and professional time.

Soft Skills

• Good communication and organizational skills
• Team player as well as self-reliant attitude
• Problem-solving skills and attention to details
• Adaptable to the new working environment and aware of their responsibilities as a hired responsive design developer
• Self-starter and self-motivated to manage projects on their own
• Flexible working options to adapt to changing work environment
• The ability to use intuitive skills to understand the audience and their requirements in terms of device usage
• The ability to accept constructive criticism with a zeal to improve the future work
• Work well under pressure to meet the deadlines
• Comfortable with travel and remote working if the required project or job demands it
• Adept at examining other candidates with similar skills to interview and hire responsive designing developers 

Hard Skills

• Proficient in layout designs and basic principles of webpage design
• Adept at typography, composition, and knowledge of different web elements
• Understands designing wireframes and mock-ups for reference
• Understands User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX)
• Proficient in Bootstrap, HTML, and CSS
• Aware of usage of different frameworks, such as ReactJS and Angular
• Knowledge of JavaScript elements like menus, text, and buttons
• Knowledge of various tools that support responsive web designs, such as Webflow

Industry Expertise to Look for to Hire a Responsive Design Developer

You might know the skills to look out for when hiring a responsive design developer, but you are still at the edge about what kind of industry expertise and professional training they must possess. For many, educational background hardly covers the in-depth knowledge and understanding of designing a responsive website. Hence, most candidates learn and acquire advanced skills to become responsive design developers on the job with hands-on training and real-time projects. Below are the various industry expertise aspects you must look at before hiring a responsive design developer:

• Knowledge and understanding of Front End and Back End designing along with the differentiation between the two.
• Knowledge of Content Management Systems (CMS) to handle and quality check the online published content.
• Cross-browser development in responsive mode.
• Knowledge of graphic designing to incorporate ideas and feedback to the graphic designer.
• Understanding of the functionality of the website to replicate the similar functions and designs in its responsive layout.
• Certifications and educational background that includes technologies, such as CSS, HTML, Bootstrap, JQuery, and Frameworks (ReactJS and Angular).
• Experience in working in a team as well as an independent creator with a zeal for problem-solving.
• A hunger for new and evolved methods of working that match with the current market environment and newly launched devices.
• Demonstrated experience in leading a team of few members to design and edit responsive layouts at one time.
• Ability to tackle persisting problems in the ongoing work or project independently or with team efforts.
• Take ownership of their work and final draft of the responsive website after it goes live.
  

Salary Expectations

In any profession, salary structure varies with years of experience, educational background, and skill set. The same is true for responsive design developers working in different industries and organizations.

As per Glassdoor, the annual salary range sits between USD 3,000 to USD 8,024 on average. This range is for individuals who hold experience of 1 year to 3 years. For more experienced responsive design developers, the salary is much higher. It also depends on the industry and country. For instance, a hired responsive design developer intern would likely receive a lower pay scale than the one mentioned here. Responsive designing is a field that is continuously growing with the changing wants of customers who are getting accustomed to using smartphones for the majority of their online presence. The increasing number of mobile users will only give rise to more improved opportunities for responsive design developers to scale up their career ladder.

Industry Expertise

Globally, remote workers and teams are flourishing, and Skuad helps these potential candidates to partner. We cater to various sectors - Edutech, Fintech, Healthcare, Logistics & Transport, Retail & Ecommerce, Travel, Banking, Media, and more to hire global remote workers. From selecting the skilled employee to onboarding, invoicing, compliances, and taxation, we act as your local HR to manage the day-to-day operations related to your overseas employees without any hassle and on time.

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