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You’re ready to join the e-commerce world and want to launch your enterprise on Shopify. Whether you’re a non-technical entrepreneur who needs someone to build your storefront or you have an existing team of developers, you may want to hire someone to build a Shopify store. By finding the right Shopify developer, you’ll save time and money.
Someone who specializes in Shopify has insights and developments into the platform that generalists may not have, which saves you expensive man-hours in terms of onboarding and learning the specifics of Shopify. He or she already understands how Shopify works — including payment gateways, inventory systems, navigation, and checkout logic — which cuts down on bugs and errors come launch time.
While full-stack developers can learn about payment gateways and stores, a bonus to hiring Shopify experts is that they have experience with and potentially a better understanding of e-commerce software systems and how users interact with storefronts. If technical expertise is not your forte, hiring a remote Shopify developer or Shopify freelancer from the get-go can make your development experience more streamlined and less financially painful.
Now that you’re interested in hiring a Shopify developer, we’ll go through how to find and recruit the best Shopify developers for your project in these sections:
- Shopify Languages and Tools
- Hiring the Best Shopify Developers
- Finding Shopify Developers for Your Project or Staff
- Competitive Pay for Shopify Developers
- Next Steps for Hiring Shopify Developers
Shopify Languages and Tools
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JQuery
- JavaScript and React
- Liquid
- Shopify Ajax API
While HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and React are standard for app development, Liquid is unique to Shopify. Liquid, developed by Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobias Lütke and available as an open-source project on GitHub, is a template language written in Ruby. Liquid is the backbone of all Shopify themes— it’s used to load dynamic content to online store pages on Shopify.
If you’re a non-technical individual seeking to hire a Shopify dev for a one-time project, you definitely want to see these languages listed on the candidate’s CV or resume. If possible, ask to see a portfolio of previous projects to see if your potential Shopify theme developer has previous experience building the specific features you want to see on your storefront. (You can check out this example of a great web developer portfolio to get some ideas on what to look for.)
For hiring managers who want to add Shopify experts to their team, looking at portfolios in addition to the candidate’s GitHub can be useful in determining if the potential candidate has the required skills you’re seeking. If a member of your current engineering team would like to be involved in the interview process, he or she could ask your candidate more technically complex questions depending on the features your team would like to implement.
Of course, if you’re building a third-party app to sell on the Shopify app store, interview questions will need to target these skills, including a solid knowledge of API integration. If you’re more focused on theme creation, your prospective developer’s front-end abilities will be crucial. In particular, a flair for web design, responsive design, and UX/UI will make them stand out from the pack.
Hiring the Best Shopify Developers
Defining What You Need from Your Shopify Developer
You know you need to hire a Shopify developer, but how do you attract qualified Shopify developers? During the job description writing, interviewing, and hiring process, make sure you clearly define the amount of technical knowledge you require, suss out if the candidate possesses the soft skills you’re looking for, and give specific examples of tasks you require your ideal candidate to have experience in.
In the application and interview process, be sure to discuss the Shopify experts’ portfolio to confirm that they have the necessary technical skills, including experience with website design and custom themes design. Compared to other areas of development, whether you’re hiring for a Shopify developer freelancer or a long-term Shopify developer, the depth and breadth of a Shopify developer’s portfolio is especially important, especially for complicated designs and features.
If you have a specific vision in mind, you want your experienced Shopify development expert to be able to execute this vision — if they’ve done something similar in the past, chances are both of you will be happy with future results. The more you know about what you’d like your developer to do for you, and the better you can express that throughout the interview process, the greater the chances will be that you can find a Shopify developer who can fit your needs.
Technical Knowledge
One important part of the hiring process is to be upfront about what technical knowledge your Shopify developer needs to possess. The clearer you are about your needs, the more likely you are to find someone with the requisite technical knowledge. When writing your job description, you’ll want to keep in mind what level of expertise you need.
For example, if you want a shop with all the bells and whistles, you'll need someone who’s familiar with creating custom themes and features. What this means is you’re more likely to benefit from hiring a senior Shopify developer. If you’re hiring a junior-level developer to build out complicated features, there’s a greater chance for errors and extra time added to product completion.
Determining the scope of your project and the level of expertise required is one area where your existing team could possibly help you (if you have one). They could advise you on whether you need a senior developer or a junior developer to be able to build the features you need.
If you’re not a technically-minded entrepreneur, it’s likely better to err on the end of more experienced technical knowledge than less. While a senior Shopify expert’s cost may be higher than the hourly rate of junior ones, senior developers’ knowledge might mean fewer hours of work. Junior developers will likely experience a steeper learning curve, which may result in a higher cost to hire.
Soft Skills
While soft skills are important for hiring for any project, they can be especially important for Shopify projects because of the number of moving parts necessary to construct, launch, and support a storefront. With a Shopify storefront, you might be in constant pre-launch contact with your Shopify developer.
For instance, you’ll want to look for a candidate who responds to emails in a timely fashion, can articulate what they need from you, and can accept constructive criticism. You want to avoid hiring someone who seems to buckle when faced with time-sensitive tasks, as situations can change quickly in e-commerce, and response time may be crucial. Your Shopify developer should also be receptive to constructive criticism — an overly sensitive team member or contractor can cause friction and delays, as well as result in a project that doesn’t meet your needs or expectations.
Whenever possible, see if you can find reviews for the developer from other Shopify store owners or in online communities and developer forums.
Work Experience
If this is your first Shopify store, or even if you already have an existing team, hiring a Shopify developer with more experience could be the key to a positive launch experience. Hiring someone with a lot of experience with e-commerce can help you with aspects of e-commerce UX/UI that a full-stack developer may not be as familiar with. If you’re a non-technical entrepreneur looking for a one-time project builder, having an experienced Shopify freelancer write easy-to-maintain code can help save you time and money down the line.
In fact, hiring a Shopify developer with a good amount of experience can help you avoid pitfalls that you might not know as a first-time store owner and give suggestions to improve your store. If you already have a team that’s working on web applications, adding Shopify expertise can also elevate the skills of your team members who may not be as familiar with aspects of e-commerce, like payment gateways and authorizations.
As a bonus, if you encounter a Shopify developer who is interested in your products, they can further help by providing feedback for your website from the consumers’ point of view. Although this may be difficult to find, you can seek out niche job boards like Arc that focus on offering software development talent. Ultimately, having someone on your team who is passionate about your products can result in better user experiences for your customers.
Finding Shopify Developers for Your Project or Staff
Once you know what you want in an ideal Shopify developer candidate, the question becomes, how do I find developers like these? In addition to online job boards, forums, and social media, Shopify sponsors a number of events for partners and developers, both in person and online, which are excellent environments for networking and finding Shopify developers.
We’ve listed some, but not all, online communities and events where you could potentially meet and recruit Shopify developers.
Online Communities
Shopify Forums
Shopify forums provide a place for Shopify store owners and developers to discuss various issues, including store reviews, technical Q&A, and e-commerce-related topics.
eCommTalk Shopify Channel
eCommTalk is a Slack channel where entrepreneurs and developers can meet to discuss e-commerce-related topics.
r/Shopify
r/Shopify is a subreddit where store owners, developers, and Redditors can post questions and comments on a variety of Shopify-related topics.
Shopify Community on LinkedIn
The Shopify Community on LinkedIn offers a forum for discussion on Shopify, including what Shopify sites look great, what makes them great, advice for Shopify customers, Shopify experiences, and the pros and cons of Shopify.
Face-to-Face Events
Shopify Meetups
Shopify Meetups are virtual or in-person events to discuss Shopify-related topics, sponsored by Shopify. They can take place on Zoom or in coffee shops, in places from the US to Indonesia, and they allow participants to discuss topics from email marketing to design.
Shopify Unite
Shopify Unite is an annual conference in Toronto where Shopify partners, developers, and merchants meet to discuss the future of commerce.
Shopify Pursuit
Shopify Pursuit is a multi-day, international conference tour for Shopify Partners and Developers. Shopify calls it “a space to step back, connect with other partners and developers, and share your knowledge and insights about building your business with Shopify.”
Competitive Pay for Shopify Developers
Now that you know who your ideal candidate is and where to find them, the next question is: how much should you pay your Shopify developer? To help you determine Shopify salaries, we’ve listed the average Shopify developers salary in the United States, salaries by states, and freelance rates to give you an idea of what you should offer your candidate.
Annual Salaries
On average, Shopify developers earn $93,000 a year, according to ZipRecruiter. On the low end, six percent of Shopify developers earn between $43,000 to $56,000 per year. On the high end, three percent of Shopify developers earn between $173,000 to $186,000 per year.
Salaries by State
California: $92,000
Colorado: $88,000
Massachusetts: $101,000
New York: $102,000
Texas: $83,000
Freelance Rates
While, on average, freelance developer rates on an hourly basis for full-stack developers are $61-80, Shopify developer rates can start at $65 per hour. That being said, many times, Shopify developers charge depending on the complexity of the store setup, which can range from $500 to over $25,000 depending on the amount of customization required.
Next Steps for Hiring Shopify Developers
Now that you know what to look for in a Shopify developer and how much to pay them, before you start hiring, you should have an idea of:
- How you want your store to look and what functions and features you need.
- Any issues you need to be solved.
- Examples of different online stores whose elements you’d like to incorporate on your website.
Knowing what you want will help you write a better, more detailed job description that reflects the level of complexity and customizations you think you might need for your store. Be thorough and honest about what technical knowledge you require. This will help you find a candidate who fits your needs.
Once you know what features you want, check out Shopify forums and groups to scope out potential Shopify developer candidates, read reviews, and browse portfolios. If you see a portfolio that looks promising, see if you can get in touch with the developer. While this may take more time than putting up a job ad and seeing who replies, by proactively vetting candidates, you can get closer to the look you want for your store while filtering out candidates with less-than-stellar reviews.
If you go to a Shopify meetup, be on the lookout for developers who seem to have the soft skills you’re looking for and who would be pleasant to work with. While you can always have a formal interview later, chatting with potential developers in a relaxed setting can help you assess their soft skills informally.
While technical skills are certainly important when it comes to development, being able to work well with someone, whether on a one-time project or on a more permanent basis, is just as important as technical knowledge in terms of stress levels and productivity.
Finally, before you go into the interviewing process full steam, you’ll want to make sure you have enough room in your budget to hire a Shopify developer with the amount of technical knowledge you need. By knowing the scope of your project, you should be able to estimate a budget (with or without help from an existing development team) and avoid awkward surprises down the road.