Month: January 2023

Why Flutter development?

Flutter is a cross-platform framework that allows developers to create beautiful applications for both Android and iOS. Flutter can also be used for desktop app development and backend development, so you can basically create an application with a single shared codebase that will work seamlessly on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, and other platforms.

Currently, businesses are using Flutter to create Android and iOS applications. Flutter allows them to save money because they need to create an app only once and it will work on both platforms while preserving the native feel and development logic. That’s not the case for most other cross-platform frameworks like React Native, for example.

All these factors make Flutter the most attractive framework for mobile development in 2021 – 2023.

The main advantages of Flutter

To sum up, there are three main advantages of Flutter:

• Fast development
• Cost-effective
• Amazing performance

Flutter uses widgets that developers can reuse across an app, and this makes the development process much faster compared to other cross-platform technologies like React Native.

The performance of Flutter is very close to that of native languages like Kotlin and Swift. We’ve compared the performance of the main mobile technologies including React Native so you can see for yourself:

Because Flutter, as we know it today, appeared only in 2018, there are still few developers that are experienced in this technology. Our Android developers at Mobinudstry were early adopters of Flutter, so now we create apps for our clients using Flutter.

In this article, you’ll learn where to find Flutter app developers, how to assess their skills, and how to structure your communication and collaboration with them. Let’s start with discussing who a Flutter developer is and what Flutter developers should know to be able to deliver a high-quality application.

Flutter developer qualifications

It’s a common practice to divide developers into three main groups according to their knowledge and years of experience:

• Junior developer
• Middle developer
• Senior developer

Usually, senior developers have 5+ years of experience, but with Flutter, most experienced developers have up to 3 years of Flutter development experience. Often, these developers are more experienced in native iOS or Android languages, and they can learn Flutter faster because of this previous experience.

Junior Flutter developers usually have up to 1 year of experience in Flutter development. They might have experience in other programming languages and can complete simple Flutter projects.

Middle and senior Flutter developers have around 2 to 3 years of experience in Flutter and at least 3 to 5 years of experience in other languages. They can deliver a Flutter application without any issues and build proper business logic to achieve your goals.

For building apps that will be used for your business, it’s vital to hire middle and senior developers who can work without significant supervision and will be able to deliver your project on time and within budget. Now let’s talk about what exactly a Flutter developer should know.

Vital Flutter developer skills

These are the main skills a Flutter developer should have:

• Knowledge of Flutter and Dart
• Experience with any other mobile programming language, such as Kotlin or Swift
• Understanding of Agile development
• Knowledge of version control systems like Git
• Social skills
• Ability to write readable code and experience in code optimization
• Understanding different architecture patterns
• Knowledge of SQL

Because Flutter is so new, it’s vital that your developer not only has Flutter knowledge but also previous development experience in other languages. At Mobindustry, all our current Flutter developers are middle and senior Android and iOS developers. This experience helps them grasp the new language fast and develop at a high level despite the novelty of the technology.

Social skills are also very important for a developer. They include English skills and the ability to be proactive and communicate effectively and respectfully in a team.

These and other skills I’ve mentioned above are universal for any developer. You’ll need to confirm all these skills during an interview. Make sure to pay as much attention to soft skills as to hard skills.

Responsibilities of a Flutter developer

What should Flutter developers for hire do aside from building Flutter applications? Here are some responsibilities you can include in your dart developer job posting:

• Reviewing own code and making sure it’s clean and concise
• Fixing any issues and bugs
• Researching new Flutter technologies, libraries, and tools
• Managing and assisting in the app development lifecycle

Determine your developer’s responsibilities according to your business needs and the skill level of the developer you’re looking for. Let’s look at a job description you can use to find a Flutter developer.

Job description for a Senior Flutter programmer

Our company needs a skilled Flutter developer who will be able to deliver Flutter applications for iOS and Android. We are looking for a professional who is able to develop an app from scratch and support it at every stage of development.

Qualifications:

• Experience developing Android or iOS apps that are available on Git or app markets
• Experience developing at least two Flutter apps for Android and iOS
• 4+ years of overall programming experience
• Ability to work according to the Agile development lifecycle
• Experience applying clean code principles
• Ability to create clear documentation
• Experience in automated testing
• Ability to use third-party libraries and APIs in projects
• Knowledge of version control tools like Git and Jenkins
• Intermediate or higher level of English

No matter what developer you’re looking for and where you’ll need to assess their skills. Let’s talk about the interview, as it helps you determine whether a developer is a right fit for your needs.

How to interview a Flutter developer

Interviewing a Flutter developer for hire may seem like interviewing any other developer, but the novelty of Flutter technology is an additional challenge. It’s ideal if you can get someone knowledgeable in Flutter to conduct a technical interview. This way, they’ll be able to assess your candidates accurately.

We always encourage clients to interview our developers to be sure they’re working with professionals and there won’t be any communication issues

If you’re not looking for an in-house developer and you’re relying on an outsourcing company that has already confirmed their developers’ skills, you can have a look at the company’s Flutter project portfolio or ask for a recommendation.

However, even if you outsource development, it’s still a good idea to interview a developer independently.

Hard skills questions

Here are some examples of technical questions you might ask a Flutter developer, along with acceptable responses.

What is an extension in Dart, and how do you create one?

An extension is a method that allows you to add new functionality to any type, even to those from the foundation. Extensions first appeared in Dart 2.7 and can be used in Flutter as well. Here’s how you create an extension:

extension NumberParsing on String {
   int parseInt() {
       return int.parse(this);
   }
}

What’s a “Future” in Dart?

A Future is a potential value that’s used for asynchronous programming and that will become available at some point in the future. A Future can also represent an error. Once the value or the error becomes available, receivers of the Future will register callbacks that handle it.

How do you parse JSON?

JSON parsing is already available in Dart. You can find it in the dart:convert library. You can use two methods for parsing JSON: jsonDecode and jsonEncode.

What’s a spread operator?

A spread operator provides the ability to insert multiple elements into a collection without using long strings of code. You can also use a null-aware spread operator that inserts elements if the array isn’t nil.

Soft skills questions

Soft skills questions depend on your needs, the number of team members, and your company’s internal culture. Here are some typical soft skills questions for a Flutter developer:

1. What has been the biggest challenge in your career? How did you resolve it?
2. Imagine that you don’t agree with your manager on how a particular problem should be solved. How will you act?
3. What would you do if you understood you couldn’t possibly meet the deadline?
4. What does constructive criticism mean to you?

Now you know how to assess both the hard and soft skills of a Flutter developer. The main question is where to find candidates. This will depend heavily on your strategy. Let’s discuss what options you have when it comes to hiring Flutter developers.

How to hire Flutter developers

Flutter developers are rare compared to other mobile programmers, and the demand for Flutter among businesses is growing. Small and midsize companies can find it especially difficult to find a skilled Flutter developer because they’re hunted for by larger companies or tech-first companies. Let’s discuss different hiring options and determine which is best for your business.

Hire an in-house Flutter developer

Hiring an in-house developer is a challenge because you’re diving into an ocean of headhunters and highly demanded candidates. You need to make sure you have all the best conditions for your future employee, from a decent salary and bonuses to a workspace and equipment. All this costs money, and hiring a developer can take several months. If you’re a business owner and time to market matters to you, looking for Flutter app developers for hire might not be the best option.

Also, hiring a developer in-house limits your pool of potential candidates, as you’ll need to look for a developer in your area. Another solution is to hire a remote developer, but then you may as well outstaff development and get a dedicated professional to work on your team remotely without the hassle of a salary, bonuses, and taxes. I’ll talk more about the benefits of outstaffing later in this article.

Hiring an in-house developer is great for companies that already have an established IT department and have all the processes in place for hiring, nurturing, and managing a development team. If a Flutter developer is just one specialist that’s lacking in your current in-house team, the best option is to hire one in-house or with outstaffing.

Let’s sum up the pros and cons of hiring an in-house Flutter developer.

Pros:

• Managing an in-house team is easier than managing a remote team.
• All your developers are 100% involved in your business because they’re aware of its internal processes.

Cons:

• You have a limited pool of candidates.
• It’s a challenge to find Flutter developers because they’re still rather rare.
• You need to take care of HR tasks and pay for workspaces, equipment, salaries, bonuses, perks, and so on.
• If a developer leaves, you’ll need to invest once again into recruiting another employee, which may pause the development process.

Hire a freelancer

Let’s assume you’ve decided that hiring an in-house developer is too costly and complicated, and you also want to expand your talent pool. Freelance developers are the first who come to mind: they’re not as costly as in-house developers at first glance, you don’t need to pay for their taxes and workspaces, and you pay only for the hours worked. This sounds great, and many businesses, especially small companies and startups start with freelancers.

Today, there are lots of freelance platforms that protect buyers and give them an opportunity to find the best candidates through reviews. This makes hiring a freelancer less risky than it used to be.

Freelance platforms protect buyers, but it’s still hard to manage a development team with freelancers

However, long gone are the times when one or two developers could create a revolutionary product in the garage and start a business. Nowadays, building a high-quality app that can survive on the market requires a whole team of experts such as business analysts, managers, developers, designers, and quality assurance specialists.

Managing a team of freelancers can become a nightmare for your business because freelancers are used to working on their own time, and communication and coordination can be a challenge.

Let’s sum up the pros and cons of hiring a Flutter freelancer.

Pros:

• You can access a large talent pool and can find the perfect fit for your budget and skill level.
• Freelance platforms will protect you from scams.
• You don’t need to invest in equipment, human resource management, workspaces, and so on.
• You’ll pay only for the hours your freelancer works.

Cons:

• A team of several freelancers is hard to manage.
• Freelancers often value independence over teamwork, and teamwork is essential for software development.
• Highly skilled, reliable, and professional full-stack Flutter developers have high rates, so they’re not necessarily more cost-effective than in-house developers.

Oursource or outstaff your Flutter app development

If you don’t have the resources and time to hire an in-house Flutter developer and hiring freelancers is too inconvenient and unreliable, outsourcing or outstaffing your Flutter app development is the best option. Lots of companies, from small businesses to large corporations, choose outsourcing because of its convenience and cost-effectiveness.

Let’s first discuss the difference between outsourcing and outstaffing. Then we’ll talk about all the benefits and potential pitfalls of these hiring strategies.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is a partnership with a Flutter app development company wherein you sign a contract and delegate the whole development process to the vendor. Basically, you get a whole team of experts that includes:

• Frontend developers
• Backend developers
• Project managers
• Quality assurance specialists
• Business analysts
• Marketers
• DevOps specialists

You can modify the team as you wish. For example, if you have your own quality assurance specialists or project managers, you can handle the QA and PM tasks yourself and hire other team members for development. Most outsourcing companies are flexible and will provide you with exactly the professionals you need.

The benefit of outsourcing is that the specialists you get have experience working together, so you’ll need time only to get to know them, while management will be much easier.

Outstaffing

If you don’t need a whole team of specialists and all you lack is one or a couple of Flutter developers, outstaffing may be the perfect option for you. With outstaffing, you get a third-party expert to work alongside your team under your management, and you only pay for the hours worked.

Outstaffing is similar to hiring a freelancer in that you can hire a professional from any country and for any kind of budget. However, outstaffing is more secure because a vendor signs a contract with you, so you can be sure your Flutter developer won’t abandon your project. Also, you can easily scale by just hiring another developer from the same company. In this way, you won’t need to go through all the hassle of finding a new specialist.

To sum up, here are the pros and cons of outsourcing and outstaffing.

Pros:

• Get access to a large pool of candidates.
• Your project idea, all your intellectual property, and your rights and interests are protected by the contract you sign with your vendor.
• Outsourcing and outstaffing are more cost-effective than hiring in-house, as you can choose a Flutter mobile app development company in a country where the cost of living is lower.
• You don’t have to pay for sick leave, bonuses, equipment, and workspaces for your team.
• You can get a whole team of specialists along with a Flutter developer.
• You don’t need to pay large fees to freelance platforms (which can reach 30%).
• Because software development companies are always working on different kinds of projects, you can get unique expertise in your field or a particular technology.

Cons:

• You still have a remote team, so you’ll need to establish communication.
• If you hire developers from a country with a very different culture from yours, you can encounter cultural differences that can make communication a bit more challenging.
• The English level of your outsourcing specialists may be too low for effective communication, so it’s good to test developers’ English skills before signing a contract.

Where to hire the best Flutter developers

If you’re looking for outsourcing or outstaffing companies, it’s good to understand the best countries for outsourcing to. Because businesses want to save their budgets, they often choose companies from countries with lower costs of living. The cost savings can be as large as 60%. For example, an application that will cost $100,000 to develop in the US might cost only $40,000 to develop in Ukraine.

Here are the most popular countries for software development outsourcing:

• Ukraine
• India
• Poland
• Philippines
• Indonesia

Ukraine is famous for its engineering background, and there are lots of talented Ukrainian developers who are always looking for new development trends. Many Android and iOS developers in Ukraine have adopted Flutter for their work, so you can find professional and skilled Flutter developers there.

What are the benefits of hiring Flutter developers in Ukraine?

1. Education. Ukraine has lots of technical universities, and many developers have advanced degrees in STEM fields.

2. Communication skills. Ukrainian developers usually have a good level of English and a European corporate culture. This simplifies communication.

3. Cost to quality ratio. Compared to the UK, the US, and other Western countries, Ukraine’s hourly rates for development are more than reasonable. However, the quality is as high as in these more expensive countries because of strong engineering skills.

So, how much does flutter development cost? This depends on your project and your developer’s hourly rates. The hourly rates of Ukrainian developers vary from company to company, but usually they lie somewhere between $25 and $45 per hour.

Your perfect strategy for hiring Flutter developers

Now I want to sum up the whole article and answer two key questions: What is the best way to hire a Flutter developer, and where can I find one? There are no universal answers to these questions because everything depends on your business, deadlines, resources, budget, location, and goals. To help you find the right answers for your situation, I’ll tell you when each strategy can be beneficial for you.

When should I hire a Flutter developer in-house?

Hire an in-house Flutter programmer if you already have an IT department in your company or you’re a tech startup that needs a dedicated developer that will always be available and will be fully integrated into your business.

In-house developers are great if you have a digital product that needs constant development and support

You should also hire an in-house developer if fast and face-to-face communication is vital for you and your resources allow you to handle the Flutter developer salary, taxes, bonuses, and expenses on office space and equipment.

Make sure that if you decide to hire Flutter developers in-house you have enough candidates in your area or you’re ready to wait several months to find a candidate and compete for them with other companies.

When should I hire a freelance developer?

Hire a freelance Flutter developer when your budget is limited and you need to find a developer fast. You should also hire a freelancer if your project is relatively small and simple and if you already have everything like wireframes, technical specifications, and the UI and UX design ready.

Freelance developers are great for small projects and MVPs

Hire a freelancer if you have strong management skills and can effectively communicate with a remote worker. Also, it’s a plus to have a technical expert in your company already so they can assess your freelance candidates and make sure their code is of a high quality.

If you hire an unprofessional programmer, there’s a possibility you’ll need to fix and even rewrite this code completely. Pay close attention to reviews and make sure you don’t expect that a freelance developer will know everything from design to quality assurance. For this, you can write out the skills needed to be a mobile app developer on Flutter, and assess developers according to this list.

When should I outsource or outstaff Flutter app development?

Outsource or outstaff Flutter development if you need a professional and reliable developer right now for a reasonable price and you want your intellectual property and confidential information to be protected by a legal contract.

If you need more than one specialist and you want a whole team working on your project, outsourcing is a great option. It will allow you to get a Flutter app that will be great not only from the technical side but from the business side as well.

Outsourcing helps with full-cycle development of a high-quality software at lower costs

Сhoose outsourcing if you have never developed apps for your business and you need someone who does it on a daily basis to lead you through the process, from planning and developing all the technical requirements to deployment, release, and maintenance.

Outsource your Flutter development if you want to save money for marketing but you’re not ready to sacrifice quality.

Why hire Flutter developers from us?

At Mobindustry, we’ve already led dozens of businesses through digital transformation, and we know how to build a successful and business-oriented application from start to finish. Here are a few reasons why we’re a great partner to choose for Flutter development.

Cost optimization

Mobindustry is based in Ukraine, a country with one of the strongest engineering schools in the world. We also offer great prices for our services: while the US developer charges $80-120 per hour on average, Ukrainian developers with the same skill set deliver software for $30-60 per hour. Thus, a 500-hour project will cost at least $40,000 in the US and just 15,000 in Ukraine.

Flutter expertise and constant learning

We started to gain Flutter expertise early on, so despite this technology being relatively young, our developers already have experience in building various projects with it. At Mobindustry, we prioritize growing new Flutter talents: we offer internships and mentorships for young developers that join our company and build products for you.

Our R&D department constantly experiments, tries new tools, and is an active member of the Flutter development community. You can be sure that we use the newest technologies, that make your Flutter apps even more high-performing, maintainable, and scalable.

Quick start

We at Mobindstry understand how important time to market is to modern businesses. That’s why, we do everything to start the planning and development process as soon as possible. All you need to do is to decide on your preferred cooperation model (outsourcing, outstaffing, or dedicated team model), discuss your idea with us, and sign a contract.

Mobindustry projects developed with Flutter

Sanbuk

Sanbuk is a large marketplace platform for purchasing experiences and vacations: here, businesses offer everything from cooking courses to yacht rentals. We used Flutter to develop a cross-platform app that would work on Android and iOS with the same codebase. Sanbuk’s app has a native feel, great performance and convenient UX design.

Food delivery app

This app was originally a Flutter-based white-label app with very limited functionality and customization abilities. Our Flutter specialists did a full code audit, improved the app’s architecture, and expanded functionality with new Flutter modules, features and integrations. Our UI/UX designers adapted the new design of this cross-platform app and created two versions for Android and iOS so that the application had a native feel to it.

Telemedicine App

We created a full telemedicine MVP from scratch using Flutter technologies, so that it could be released as soon as possible, and also be more cost-effective for our client. We implemented all the necessary features like video and voice chats, geolocation, patients’ and doctors’ profiles, and payment gateway, to create a smooth experience for our client’s app users.

After launching a successful MVP, we continued to expand the functionality according to our initial technical documentation and our client’s requests. The Flutter architecture we used in this project allowed for easy and fast scaling.

You can learn about other projects built with Flutter in our portfolio. Feel free to contact us and share your idea for a Flutter app. We can set you up with a team of developers and other mobile app development specialists, and be your dedicated business partner at each stage of the development process and beyond!