It is no surprise that Angular is among the top-ranking web development frameworks as it offers many advantages that are difficult to pass by. Angular developers get code consistency, early error detection, easy maintenance, and a strong online open-source MEAN Stack community are only a few of the many benefits you’ll get if you decide to switch career paths and learn Angular.
From my experience working in a bespoke software development company with rich experience in the banking, healthcare, and logistics industries, I learned that web development is successful with passion and in-depth knowledge.
But besides technical skills, there are also valuable personal qualities that are useful for Angular web developers. Read further to explore which are the essential ones and how you can develop them.
Table of Contents
1. Typescript
Angular emerged from the collaboration of numerous developers at Google and is offered as open-source software. In contrast to AngularJS, Angular is a TypeScript-based front-end web application framework.
As a programming language, TypeScript is the static type system. It enables errors to be avoided during coding and makes the source code more readable by creating your types using interfaces.
Moreover, the advantage of automatic code completion in modern IDEs cannot be denied. With the in-house language service, the Angular team also provides an excellent tool, like the TSC (TypeScript Compiler), that enables check and auto-completion within inline and external templates. Plugins for this are available for the common IDEs (VSCode, Sublime and Webstorm).
2. CSS/ SCSS/ SASS
Another essential Angular skill is web design. For creating amazing design styles, you will need to get familiar with CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) and SCSS (Sassy SCSS), which are scripting languages with different extensions.
Files have respectively .css and .scss extensions. SCSS contains more elaborate features than traditional CSS. Also, SASS (Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets) is a must for Angular developers. It is an SCC preprocessor with lots of variables, loops and other useful functions.
3. Tailwind SCC
When it comes to responsive web design, you can’t simply have enough tools and frameworks in your arsenal. Tailwind SCC is a framework that allows you to compose different classes, e.g.flex or pt-4 and create various designs straight in your markup. Tailwind also provides developers with a custom UI collection with responsive components and templates.
4. RxJS
RxJS (Reactive Extensions for JavaScript) is a library for reactive front-end development that offers a wide range of operators that enable the connection of synchronous (event-based) and asynchronous code. RxJS also works with observable sequences and LINQ-like queries. This library is essential for state management and counts as a critical skill for Angular developers.
Data sequences can take diverse forms, e.g. data streams from files or web services, service requests from the web, system notifications or a series of events like some user input. Reactive Extensions present all of these data sequences as observable sequences. These can be registered by an application to receive asynchronous notifications when new pieces of data arrive.
5. Docker
Docker is a must-know free software, which is very popular because it simplifies the deployment of Angular applications. Docker does containerize web applications (create containers) so that the whole app can be deployed faster and easier.
To successfully use the Docker software, you will need code, runtime modules, system tools and system libraries, and each of these can be installed on a computer.
To dockerize your Angular app, you need to launch the Docker VM, create a Docker file and place it in the app folder. Then, build an image from the Docker file using $ Docker develop and run your app using it.
6. Jenkins
Here is another powerful weapon in the arsenal of each Angular developer. Jenkins is an expandable, web-based software system for the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) of software components into an application program.
Besides being free to install, Jenkins is supported by a large online community, and help is always a few clicks away. Also, the software comes with more than thousands of plugins designed to help you work more efficiently.
7. Firebase
One more essential skill for Angular developers is Firebase. It is a platform for mobile and web application development and is currently developed by Google.
It provides tools and infrastructure via a Software Development Kit (SDK) intended to enable developers to offer functions more efficiently and in a more efficient way using programming interfaces on various platforms.
8. JHipster
JHipster comes from Java Hipster, and Angular developers have a couple of reasons to use it. First of all, JHipster is free and open-source software that provides you with essential tools for your web development and quickly generates web applications using structured source code based on CRUD operations.
Secondly, this application offers user management and microservices with numerous options to ease the development process. Thirdly, it supports Elasticsearch, Websocket, NoSQL databases and automatic deployments to Heroku, AWS, OpenShift etc. Do you need any further convincing?
9. The Ability to Estimate
Often there is no consensus between the developers about what should be included in the estimate. This should be determined, communicated to all and learned by all new software developers. Of course, the estimates are always project-specific. So many project aspects require attention and thorough estimation that it is a skill you can’t do without.
For instance, communicated requirements (with your client) and their technical specifications, required architecture, implementation, tests (what, how + how much), documentation (developers + user), quality estimations. The list can go on, but you get the point. Тhe ability to make correct estimations is a vital one for Angular developers.
10. Love What You Do
This one is not specific for Angular developers only but is universal for tech professionals in the IT sector. You can’t create practical and meaningful projects without being passionate about the technologies and the frameworks you use. Well, maybe you can, but sooner or later, if you don’t like what you do, you increase your risk of burnout and dissatisfaction from work.
Those who love their work like us at Dreamix, every time a new version release or even a minor feature update comes out, is some mini celebration. An occasion to spread the word and start learning new exciting stuff. Are you also one of us?
