If you ask anyone, “What was the first cloud platform?” chances are pretty good they’ll answer with a resounding “Google!” Most would be surprised to find out that one of the first cloud platforms was a little-known company called Heroku. That company has been in development since 2007. At first, their platform only supported the Ruby programming language. Since then, Heroku has come to support Java, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP, and Go.
By supporting multiple languages, Heroku has all the features necessary for a developer to build, run, and scale applications across most languages.
But what is Heroku? Simply put, Heroku is a cloud platform that makes it possible for developers and businesses to go from “idea to URL” while bypassing common infrastructure headaches. So if your company is looking for the fastest route to developing and deploying apps at scale, they will need to hire Heroku developers.
Why would your company opt to go with Heroku? This is an important question, especially when there are more familiar names available for this task, such as Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Linode. Where Heroku shines is that it’s a great platform for companies with limited budgets or those who are only just now beginning to get the opportunities available in the cloud ecosystem. This is made especially apropos, given how simple Heroku is to use.
Heroku’s primary focus is customer-focused apps. To that end, the platform makes it simple to develop and deploy those apps. And because Heroku manages all hardware and services, your company can focus on perfecting that new application.
What is Platform as a Service?
Understanding what Heroku does means understanding Platform as a Service (PaaS). Essentially, PaaS is a cloud computing model wherein a cloud service provider delivers the necessary hardware and software (such as operating systems, middleware, and runtimes) via the internet.
The big draw to PaaS is that businesses don’t have to deal with the cost and maintenance of hardware, so they can focus on building their apps and platforms. By removing this barrier to entry, even smaller companies and individual developers can deploy apps at scale.
PaaS is the heart and soul of Heroku, which makes it possible for the company to focus “relentlessly on apps and the developer experience around apps.”
For those who need numbers to understand how well Heroku delivers on this promise of making it easy to develop and deploy:
- 60+ Billion requisitions per day.
- 13+ Million apps created.
- 200+ Add-on services offered.
- 2.8+ Million managed data stores.
Heroku also offers constant threat monitoring, automatic and seamless operating system vulnerability patching, and around-the-clock operations.
Hiring Guide
Why might you need to hire remote Heroku developers?
If your company continues to grow at accelerated rates, you will eventually have to look into adopting a PaaS solution. When that occurs, you’ll need developers ready to begin building consumer- and customer-focused applications that can scale to meet growing demands.
What kind of apps can you develop and deploy on Heroku? The sky’s the limit. And Heroku makes it possible for your developers to work with:
- Command-line interface
- Continuous delivery
- Databases and data management
- Monitoring and metrics
- App performance
- Add-ons
- Collaboration
- Security
- Git
Heroku apps run within lightweight Linux containers called dynos that are pre-loaded with an application’s prepared slug (compressed and pre-packaged copies of an application that has been optimized for distribution via the dyno manager).
That means your Heroku developer will need to have a solid understanding of Linux and how to develop within that environment. Those same developers will want to have a solid foundation knowledge of databases (such as Postgres and MySQL), Redis (in-memory data structure store), and Git.
Other Necessary Skills
To get the most out of Heroku, your developers should also have a strong understanding of the following:
- PaaS
- Command-Line Interface
- Application frameworks
- APIs
- Cloud technology
- Middleware
- Slugs
Although not critical for Heroku jobs, your app developers should fully understand the 12-Factor App manifesto, which is a design methodology for the architecture of modern applications. Heroku is very much informed by this methodology.
Heroku Interview Questions
Why work with data cleansing?
To ensure the data used in the software is of the highest quality and won’t disrupt the normal functioning of an application.
What are dynos?
Dynos are lightweight Linux containers used to deploy apps on Heroku.
Where do you specify commands for the execution of applications on Heroku?
The procfile.
How would you start 5 dynos, 3 for the web and 2 for the queue process types?
heroku ps:scale web=3 queue=2
How would you configure an encryption key for an application?
heroku config:set ENCRYPTION_KEY=my_secret_launch_codes
How can you view an audit trail of Heroku release deployments?
heroku releases
How can you create and attach a one-off dyno?
heroku run bash
How can you add the Heroku Redis backing store add-on to an application?
heroku addons:create heroku-redis:hobby-dev
Job Description
We are looking for a talented software engineer with a high-level mastery of cloud-native development to build efficient and exciting web and mobile applications and deploy them from the Heroku service. You will be responsible for working with the necessary technologies and teams to build these applications.
You will also be responsible for integrating the front-end elements built by your co-workers into the application. Therefore, a basic understanding of frontend technologies is necessary as well.
Responsibilities
- Design, build and maintain efficient and reusable web and mobile apps with various languages.
- Integrate data storage solutions.
- Implement performance and quality modes.
- Identify bottlenecks and bugs and resolve all discovered issues.
- Carefully monitor the performance of deployed software and constantly find ways to improve them.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define and design new features.
- Stay up to date with new technology trends, applications, and protocols.
- Help maintain code quality, organization, and automatization
- Analyze user requirements to help inform application design.
- Define application objectives and functionality.
- Align application design with business goals and customer needs.
- Produce detailed documentation.
- Recommend changes to existing applications and the infrastructure used to build them.
- Ensure continuous professional self-development.
- Integrate user-facing elements developed by frontend developers with server-side logic
- Write reusable, testable, and efficient code
- Design and implement low-latency, high-availability, and performant applications
- Implement security and data protection
- Integrate data storage solutions
Skills And Qualifications
- Degree in Computer Science or related field.
- Experience with cloud-native computing, Heroku, and middleware.
- Excellent skills with languages such as Java, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP, and Go
- Basic understanding of frontend technologies, such as HTML5 and CSS3.
- Understanding of the principles behind scalable applications.
- Fundamental understanding of version control systems (such as Git).
- Solid problem-solving skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication.
- Good organizational skills.
- Ability to work as part of a team.
- Attention to detail.
- Understanding the nature of asynchronous programming and its quirks and workarounds
- A positive attitude.
Conclusion
Any company taking its first steps with cloud-native development shouldn’t overlook developers who have committed to Heroku careers. Thanks to its simplistic approach to app development and deployment, companies new to the idea of cloud-native will find themselves feeling ahead of the game straight out of the gate.
