What is React? 

You may not judge a book by its cover, but a web application gets assessed by the visual aesthetics of the User Interface (UI) and its functionalities. React is a JavaScript library that provides front-end developers an incredible framework and hence is getting increasingly popular. Aside from the encapsulated and reusable components, the customization features enable developers to build complex UI with simple views. Creating secure, responsive, and interactive web applications is no longer a challenging task but an exciting innovation with the sophisticated React.js framework.  

If you foresee a career or aspire to become a sought-after web app developer, you want to get well-versant with ReactJS.  

Which are the must-have skills you need to stack up? (Pun intended!)

Top 9 Must-Have React Developer Skills in 2022 

1. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)+ Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Honing any skill always starts with getting the basics right. If you are a front-end developer, get familiar with HTML and CSS languages before moving into ReactJS. The more thorough you are, the firmer the foundation for constructing a well-developed page, website, and eventually an application. Well-scripted codes deliver a cleaner user experience.

Ensure you know how to: 

• Write the code for semantic HTML tags and use them 
• Use CSS for Inline styling  
• Build responsive CSS layouts with the box-sizing properties 
• Use Flexbox for creating beautiful and reusable components
• Implement CSS reset to avoid cross-browser differences 
• Apply the three main design principles—fluid grid system, flexible images, and media queries
  

2. JSX (JavaScript XML) + Babel
   

Simply put, JSX is the syntax extension of JavaScript that allows you to write HTML in React. JSX expressions simplify writing component codes and rendering tree-like structures of React elements. Essentially, JSX helps developers create simpler and elegant pieces of code even when they are large blocks. Developers familiar with HTML and CSS will appreciate the ease of building React applications with JSX.  

However, to implement JSX, you require the transcompiler—Babel that converts the ECMAScript2015 (ES6) + source code into a backward-compatible version of JavaScript. The toolchain helps you use modern JavaScript language features. 

3. JavaScript Fundamentals + ECMAScript 6 (ES6)

React is fundamentally JavaScript, and that is why knowing the programming language features and having substantial experience working with it is necessary for a front-end developer. The 6th version of the ECMAScript that standardized the JavaScript has certain modern features to take note of: 

• Arrow Functions 
• Variables (let, const, var) 
• Array Methods  
• Destructuring 
• Modules
• Ternary Operator 
• Spread Operator 

The new features will enable you to write asynchronous code making the process more efficient. 

4. Hooks

Hooks is a super-cool feature that makes a coder’s life far easier. Ask any experienced React developer, and they would tell you what a nightmare it was to refactor class components and render props with verbose code before Hooks got released in 2018. Hooks simplified the methods of updating the state and implementing the lifecycles of function components.  

Working with Hooks will help you improve the user interface with enhanced code readability, reusability, and testability.  

5. Virtual Document Object Model (VDOM) and Event Handling Facility

The biggest drawback of the actual DOM was that any manipulation of a single element in the tree structure would trigger the framework to rebuild every object. The more updates to the DOM, the slower the operations got, making it very cumbersome for developers. That problem got resolved only after the innovation of the Virtual DOM (VDOM). The React VDOM virtually handles all the changes made to the objects but updates only the necessary changes to those particular objects in the actual DOM when everything is finalized, thus saving you precious time.  

6. NodeJS + Node Package Manager (NPM)

Using NodeJS is NOT a prerequisite for ReactJS web app development but can definitely accelerate projects if utilized in combination. While ReactJS takes care of the front-end aesthetics of the web application, Node is a JavaScript language that is ideal for backend development. NodeJS helps maintain continuous streaming and server load balance for real-time data-intensive web applications. The full-stack JS framework improves scalability and speeds up code execution.  

Use the NPM cloud registry for managing all NodeJS package repositories or dependencies and the JavaScript libraries.  

7. Redux

One of the most important aspects of web applications is that they are expected to behave consistently across client, server, and native environments and must be easy to test, too.  You need Redux, the state management library for ReactJS to centralize and manage the global state of the application or to maintain specific patterns while updating the state.  

8. Technical Application Skills

Aside from having a command of the JavaScript language and system architecture, you must have knowledge and expertise of certain other tools crucial for writing clean code for the front-end development of ReactJS applications.  

• Build tools for component visualization 
• Modular bundle analyzer  
• Development automation tools 
• Tools for reporting crashes and managing testers, or beta version distribution tool. 
• Testing utilities or code evaluation tool to confirm if it complies with the JS 
• Form building API or libraries 
• Debugging extensions

9. Soft Skills

Even as you check every box for technical skills, your soft skills are equally important. You might want to cultivate these soft skills that employers or clients will value in a front-end developer: – 

• Creativity 
• Emotional intelligence 
• Clarity in communication  
• Learning/ Growth mindset 
• A keen eye for detail/observation  
• Critical/Analytical thinking 
• Time management, especially with deadlines 
• People management/ interpersonal skills 
• Accountability 
• Problem-solving attitude 
• Team player’s spirit 

 What Is the Future for React Developers? 

The post-Covid world has grown more digital than ever before. We rely on web/mobile applications for everything from buying groceries to improving physical and mental health. The growing majority of organizations are now showing a preference for ReactJS while creating a digital platform for their business since it provides a speedy, scalable, easy-to-maintain, and extremely SEO-friendly environment. Consequently, there is a noticeable upsurge in the demand for developers with a robust ReactJs skillset. And there’s no trough to this wave anytime soon!  

 Build on the 9 ReactJS skills, related technical skills, and 11 soft skills shared here. 

Create engaging web applications.  

And find yourself in the league of the most sought-after ReactJS developers of 2022.   

MetaSys React team makes the best use of all the new exciting features of React like React Hooks, React Bootstrap, React Redux and React Router to build complex web and mobile applications. So if you have any such requirement, then please feel free to contact our React Programmers.