• Origin story: Microsoft launched Azure as a PaaS offering because Windows Azure was positioned as an alternative to Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine. Amazon’s Iaas was still in beta to start getting attention from the developers but on the other hand, the Google App Engine that was announced in 2008 was the industry’s first PaaS offering to have a strong heritage of building developer platforms and tools.
• Widely popular: According to SimilarTech, there are about 303,079 websites and 142,253 unique domains using Azure. The United States has the highest-ranking with 63,779 websites followed by Russia with 40,658 and Japan with 17,472 websites.
• Used by top companies: Top companies like eBay, Boeing, Samsung, BMW, and Travelocity use Microsoft Azure.
• Other trivia: The original flavor of Azure, Red Dog, was an extension of Windows NT built for the cloud. Dave Cutler, an engineer at Microsoft who was the architect for Windows NT, was tasked to design an OS that would become the foundation of Microsoft’s cloud which resulted in Windows Azure.

• Budget-friendly: Azure offers more than 100 services that the businesses can choose from. The pay-as-you-go model makes it easier for the companies to manage their finances as they pay only for the resources they use.
• Auto-scaling: Azure’s auto-scaling feature monitors site traffic and as the usage spikes up, it scales your services to keep up with the uprising demand. This gives companies the benefit to preschedule resources to scale up and down in accordance with the fluctuations in usage and demand.

These are some of the commonly used Azure developer tools:

1. Azure Developer Portal

Azure Developer Portal is an open-source portal with intuitive features for customization and a visual editor. It allows users to build, monitor, and manage their applications - big or small.

2. Cloud Explorer for Visual Studio

This tool allows you to manage the Azure resources and resource groups. You can inspect them and perform diagnostics inside Visual Studio using the Cloud Explorer tool.

3. Azure Database Migration Service

When you want to migrate your data to Azure, the Azure Database Migration Service is the go-to tool. This tool helps to migrate the data, objects, and schema from various sources to the cloud.

4. Azure Blob Studio

This is a tool that allows Azure developers to manage files on their Windows Azure Blog Storage account. It can be used as a standalone app or an extension for Visual Studio.

5. Docker

Docker is a container management tool and is recommended option for the creation, management, and deployment of app containers. It works well with Azure and native Docker commands can be used to run apps in Azure Container Instances.

Below are some key points that we at Flexiple have learned through trial and error - a process of filtering through over 15,000 developers. You can use these in your process to hire Azure developers

• Years of software development experience: Be specific about the technology you’re looking for and the number of years of experience needed. A proxy to years of experience can be the number of production-level apps worked on.
• Expertise in a specific language: All languages have their peculiarities and nuances. While good Azure developers can pick up other languages, it’s a plus point to hire a developer who already has expertise in it.
• Type of products built in the past: Based on the type of product you are trying to build - social network, SAAS product, etc. - you can prioritize certain developers over others.
• Exposure to specific industries: Developers who have built products in certain industries will already know key aspects of laying the foundation for a great product and will be able to predict possible problems.
• Experience working remotely: Hiring someone who has worked remotely in the past is an added advantage as they would have front-hand experience of everything right from how contracts work to streamlined communication and from timelines to deliverables.
• Strong communication: An essential thing to look at when hiring a freelancer is excellent communication skills. Since all the interaction happens online, a freelancer should be able to effectively communicate to ensure a streamlined execution of all work.

Now that you have made a quality JD, it can still be tricky to evaluate the skills of your applicants when you hire Azure developers. To help you with that, we have created a pool of questions that a good Azure developer should be comfortable with.

It is important to note that the ability to answer these questions doesn't imply that you have a top quality candidate. But it definitely is a big step in that direction. You can check out interview questions on some related concepts here.

To help you navigate through these questions, we’ve categorized the interview questions in 3 parts:

A. Basic concepts: Includes all basic concepts used across languages. This section will give you an understanding of how strong their programming foundation is.

B. Advanced concepts: Includes all concepts that someone with higher expertise should know.

C. DS/Algorithm questions: To test the logical capability of the candidate.

A. Basic concepts

Coming soon!

B. Advanced concepts

Coming soon!

C. Data Structure/ Algorithm

1. Given a string containing just the characters '(', ')', '{', '}', '[' and ']', determine if the input string is valid. An input string is valid if: Open brackets must be closed by the same type of brackets. Open brackets must be closed in the correct order. Note that an empty string is also considered valid.

class ValidParenthesesFunc {
    func isValid(_ s: String) -> Bool {
        var stc = [Character]()

        for char in s {
            if char == "(" || char == "[" || char == "{" {
                stc.append(char)
            } else if char == ")" {
                guard stc.count != 0 && stc.removeLast() == "(" else {
                    return false
                }
            } else if char == "]" {
                guard stc.count != 0 && stc.removeLast() == "[" else {
                    return false
                }
            } else if char == "}" {
                guard stc.count != 0 && stc.removeLast() == "{" else {
                    return false
                }
            }
        }
        return stc.isEmpty
    }
}

The above code will input 0(false). 

2. What will the output of the following code be?

var i = 10;
var f = 5;
var g = 3;
if (i / f / g)
     document.write("hi");
else
    document.write("hello");

The answer is A because the floating-point division returns a non zero value = 0.66 which evaluates
to true and outputs ‘hi’.

3. What will the output of the following code be?

class Test {
public static void main(String args[])
    {
        String str1 = new String("Hello World");
        String str2 = new String("Hello World");

        String str3 = "Hello World";
        String str4 = "Hello World";

        int a = 0, b = 0, c = 0;

        if (str3 == str4)
            a = 1;
        else
            a = 2;

        if (str1.equals(str3))
            b = 1;
        else
            b = 2;

        if (str1 == str4)
            c = 1;
        else
            c = 2;
        System.out.println("a= " + a + " b= " + b + " c= " + c);
    }
}

D. a=1 b=1 c=2 because a new memory is created when we make an object with the help of the ‘new’ keyword, 
and the reference variable contains the memory location. 
Here the memory is created with the same string twice, but since we are comparing objects and not strings, 
the object will point to a different memory location and so they are not equal. 

That in a nutshell, is everything you need to consider when hiring a freelance Azure developer. As discussed, it isn't easy to find a quality freelance Azure developer but this guide makes the process easier for you. To offload the entire hiring process, reach out to us at Flexiple. We've designed a high-quality, 6-step screening process to find the top 1% freelance developers. You can find the best freelance Azure developers here. We've already served over a hundred clients, earning great reviews for the quality of service.

Lastly, to quickly summarize the process of hiring an Azure developer for you:

• Note your project requirements and hire accordingly. Do not go for the lowest or the highest-paid developer.
• Don’t hire without vetting- consider asking questions right from the basics to advanced to logical questions.
• Look for companies like Flexiple that help you find the perfect fit.

That's about all you need to know to hire Azure developers. Happy hiring! :)