Tips for writing a frontend developer job ad

As businesses compete to create a solid, recognizable online presence, the demand for frontend developers is increasing daily. It’s a logical chain of events: a need for sophisticated, up-to-date, and responsive web design largely depends on the quality of the web developer and the way they’ll implement their proposed solution.

In fact, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that the demand for frontend developers is supposed to see a 13% increase over the course of 10 years (2020 – 2030). This percentage is higher than the average number for all other professions.

As expected, the best companies will do everything in their power to attract the highest quality developers, making it very challenging for everyone else to find and retain top frontend developers.

So, a question arises: how do you compete against the giants in the industry in an ethical and transparent way?

The answer is: by writing a stellar frontend developer job ad that leaves nothing up to chance.

Thousands of recruiters post job ads on a daily basis, making it even more important to stand out from the crowd. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing your job ad among the pile of similar ones out there.

Types of job ads

There are two types of job ads:

• Short
• Long

Short job ads are meant for a quick read; they exist to entice the potential member to get to know more about the position, responsibilities, compensation, and the company itself.

These types of ads can usually be posted on social media or other online platforms where the attention span of its user database is considerably shorter (compared to dedicated job forums, listings, or similar).

Long job ads include everything about the position, such as the job duties and responsibilities, required years of experience, technical skills, soft skills, proposed financial compensation, job location (if applicable), and more information about the company posting the advertisement.

In that regard, longer job ads are more akin to job descriptions, but they can be leveraged as both (ads and descriptions). These types of ads are usually meant for dedicated job platforms, including freelance talent sites like Upwork and Freelancer, or developer recruitment services like our own Proxify.

In this article, we’ll cover both short and long job ads.

Short frontend developer job ad sample template

A short job ad template would look something like this:

Job title: Senior frontend developer wanted

We (company name) are looking for a senior frontend developer with more than five years of experience working with PHP, HTML, CSS, and Tailwind to develop a variety of applications for our existing and upcoming clients.

The candidate will be responsible for translating the UI/UX design into code that will produce the visual elements of the web application. They will work closely with the UI/UX designer to bridge the gaps between graphic design, user experience and technical functionality of the application.

They will constantly monitor the workflow and give directions on how to implement specific elements during the application development process, at each step of the way.

• Example compensation: $30 per hour
• Example job offer: part-time, 20 hours a week
• Example location: remotely

Long frontend developer job ad sample template (job description)

Here’s an example of a longer job ad (job description):

Job title: Looking for a frontend developer (ASP.NET, C#, Visual Basic, Loom, HTML, CSS)

About our company: At Profixy, we are constantly challenging the status quo by innovating the process of developer sourcing and making it more efficient for every party involved, including businesses and developers.

Through our excellent developer matching service and dedicated client managers, our clients trust us to pair them with professionals that are perfectly suited for their specific engagement needs on a daily basis. Here, everyone has a voice and can share their ideas freely. In fact, we guarantee that you’ll feel right at home if you decide to hone your frontend developer skills with us!

Duties and responsibilities: The ideal candidate will be able to convert detailed graphical designs into clean and concise HTML + CSS code, along with code explanations where and if necessary. They will collaborate with other teams and team members within the company (UI/UX, graphic design, marketing, SEO) to implement a fast, reliable, responsive and seamless web experience for users accessing with the most popular devices and browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Opera).

Additionally, they will also be responsible for writing performant app components that will be congruent with the visual design of the web application (that users will see and interact with).

Finally, the candidate will be well-versed in most relevant new technologies (including languages, frameworks, and libraries), or willing to learn and adapt as the industry trends change and evolve.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience creating applications in ASP.NET, Bootstrap or Angular
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field (or equivalent experience building applications and/or contributing to various web development projects)
• Experience with GitHub or GitLab for managing application version control
• Great communication and interpersonal skills
• Teamwork-oriented
• Open for remote work, as well as the occasional visit to our offices in Stockholm, Sweden

Compensation and other benefits:

• Competitive salary ([digit amount here and currency] per hour depending on skills and experience)
• Brand-new MacBook Air and other working equipment as applicable
• Two days of paid leave per one month of working
• Full access to a variety of online tools and services

Reach out to us!

If you nodded to every paragraph above, then rest assured that you’re perfectly suited for the opportunity! Don’t hesitate to reach us as we’re always looking for the best frontend developers!

How to write a stellar frontend developer job ad

I’ve been caught saying this a lot lately, but here goes: writing a frontend developer job advertisement is more like an art than science. In other words, there are multiple ways of doing it, but only a few will make your ad stand out from the rest.

A good first tip is to treat the job ad as a candidate would treat their resume. After all, the job post is the first contact they’ll have with your company, so it’s good practice to remove any uncertainties by highlighting how your company operates, including the key company values and your long-term mission as a business.

With that being said, here are some tips on the most important sections in a job posting and how they should look:

Job title

The job title is the first point of contact with the outside world, meaning that it can make or break your entire hiring strategy. After all, if only a small number of potential applicants are enticed by the job title, the chances of finding the right person for the job will drop down exponentially.

Here, there are two ways to attract attention:

• By making the job title clear, concise, and no-nonsense
• By taking a “creative freedom” with the job ad title

An example of a clear, no-nonsense job ad title would be:

Frontend web developer| 5+ years | JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js | Remote |

From this example, prospective candidates can immediately tell what the job is about, what is required of the candidate and the type of employment as well (remote opportunity).

But, you can also “go wild” in your title in hopes that you’ll get more views to your post. Anecdotally speaking, I’ve seen this strategy at its peak between 2015–2019, and then it winded down as people’s sentiment toward working changed from generally optimistic to generally pessimistic (thankfully, lately we are seeing some positive changes that could swing the sentiment back toward optimism).

An example of a “creatively poignant” job ad title would be something like this:

JavaScript expert wanted for a young, fun startup to make history by shifting existing paradigms from the grounds up!

Obviously, this is an exaggeration, but if your company’s values align with the message in the job ad title (ex: entertainment, games), why not try it out?

About the business

Writing the job ad is not just about the job description. It’s also a chance to present your company in the best light possible (i.e., highlight the type of company and business, structure, and perks) to upcoming candidates who might be interested in applying.

The best approach to writing about your organization is to consider how you’d potentially explain the business to your relative or a close friend.

You can include some of the following points:

• History of your business (i.e. how it started, famous product or service)
• Some insight on your customer or client base
• Mention of existing or upcoming press releases, special awards, or other achievements

The goal is not to “bore” the candidate with an extensive history of everything that has happened since the company started. Rather, it’s an opportunity to highlight the advantages your company has over the competition.

Role summary

Technically speaking, the ideal frontend developer already understands the role on a deeper level.

Therefore, explaining the role in a detailed way serves two main purposes:

• To leverage an environment that quality frontend developers will recognize themselves in
• To filter out everyone that is not qualified for the role

Duties and responsibilities

You can think of this heading as an extension of the role section, summarized in bullet points instead. Ideally, you’d list all important tasks that your future engineers will have to prioritize.

Additional examples include:

• Integrating analytics to enable continuous product evolution without negatively impacting quality

• Extending and improving the existing design system and suggesting changes where and if applicable

• Developing productive partnerships with other team members in similar roles across Proxify, contributing to a consistent and friction-free experience for all clients using our services

• Coaching, training and contributing to the professional improvement of other developers across multiple teams (design, user experience) in the company

Required skills and experience

Listing the required skills and experience in a job advertisement is a MUST. After all, these are the things the candidate cannot successfully fulfill their duties without. Ideally, you will identify, filter, and present the required skills clearly and unambiguously in the job ad.

You can also separate the skills in “must-have” and “good-to-have”. This will give you some wiggle room to include potential applicants who don’t fit the “proverbial mold” of a typical frontend developer (ex: self-taught, worked on unpublished or private pet projects).

Education and certifications

At this point, including education requirements for a position like frontend developer is 100% optional. Nowadays, many professionals are self-taught and don’t have the credentials that university attendance provides.

However, that doesn’t mean they’re not skilled developers; according to many professionals in the industry (on both sides), “raw” skills are more important than university certifications and even better proof that the candidate can meet the demands in the workplace.

In fact, including education requirements can sometimes inadvertently prevent very competent developers from answering the ad. They may not have a diploma, but their real-life experience could offset this fact and lead to a quality new collaboration with them.

However, if you are really insistent on including it, or maybe it’s company policy over which you have little control, then go for it. The education level could be a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, or even a PhD if the position requires cutting-edge science (i.e. working at the Hadron Collider as a frontend web analyst or frontend developer).

You can also include requirements such as certifications or special clearances if the candidate will be dealing with sensitive data. Jobs in cybersecurity come to mind, or even working for the government sector as well.

Working hours and location

Explicitly stating the expected working hours is important in multiple ways. First, if your company’s headquarters are based abroad, but you are hiring locally somewhere else, providing a clear working structure can solve any potential misunderstandings down the road.

Secondly, some companies offer the possibility of remote work, but within a set hourly structure. In this case, emphasizing the type of position (remotely) and expected working hours, including the time zone, will signal to potential candidates the way how your business operates.

Then, they can decide whether to apply and if there is room for compromise on both sides.

Here are some examples of how this should look like:

Working hours:

• Fulltime (40 hours per week, expected availability between 08:00 - 16:00 EST)
• Part-time (15-25 hours per week)
• Fixed project (estimated 30 hours to complete)

Location:

• Office-based (08:00 - 16:00 CET)
• Remotely (expected availability between 08:00 - 12:00 and 12:30 and 18:00 CET)
• Remotely (flexible working hours)

Compensation and other perks

It’s good practice to be transparent and upfront about the suggested compensation for the frontend developer position. If your company is ok with it, be sure to mention that the salary is negotiable.

The proposed compensation is one of the key factors in attracting viable professionals to your organization. However, the compensation alone is not enough to attract top tech experts. The company culture, reputation, work environment, as well as other perks and benefits all play an important role in whether people will apply to your ad.

Here’s an example of some perks and benefits to include:

• Option for remote work and flexible working hours
• On-time stipend for working equipment, e.g. a laptop, monitor and peripherals
• Training, mentorships, courses and opportunities for professional growth
• Health and dental insurance plans (if applicable)
• 401(k) retirement plan (if applicable)

Conclusion

Whew, that was more than a handful, wasn’t it?

And that’s without including things like legal disclosures, how and where to apply, the structure of the hiring process, and more.

Hopefully, you can put some of these tips to good use to attract some of the best professionals in the industry.

Happy scouting!