Framework knowledge is the easy part to check and the least predictive of success. What separates a senior React Native engineer is production experience: shipping to both stores, debugging native crashes, and making architecture decisions that hold up under growth.
Key takeaways
- Review production ownership, native debugging, and release experience.
- Ask how the developer approaches architecture, performance, testing, and failures.
- Choose communication and decision quality alongside framework knowledge.
What to actually screen for
Look for evidence of production ownership: apps live on the App Store and Play Store, experience reading native crash and ANR reports, and at least one hard problem they diagnosed across the JS/native boundary. Ask them to walk through a real performance or crash investigation end to end.
Probe judgment, not trivia: how they decide between Expo and bare, how they choose a state strategy, what they test versus leave untested, and how they handle a failed release. The reasoning matters more than the specific answer.
The qualities that compound
Communication and decision quality compound over a project far more than raw coding speed. A developer who documents decisions, flags risk early, and writes maintainable code leaves you with an asset; one who only ships features quickly often leaves debt.
Match the seniority to the stage: early products need someone who can own architecture and release end to end, not just implement tickets.