Although the language is comparatively new in the world of development, Elixir gives developers a lot to work with. As a functional programming language, it gives developers the ability to quickly write high-quality code that not only scales easily but also recovers automatically upon one of its minimal failures.
With local reasoning of code, Elixir is functional and data is immutable. This means that hunting down bugs isn’t an enormously time-consuming and frustrating process as it is with languages that feature variables that are passed throughout various places. Elixir and other functional programming languages put emphasis on concise, smaller functions with a clear purpose. For devs, this means that it’s easy to understand and figure out the result ahead of writing something to facilitate easier testability. Basic changes also occur at a much more rapid pace.
Elixir is a great choice of language for a variety of projects. The Phoenix framework makes it an ideal choice for web development or for building small, microservice-oriented applications. Larger apps also benefit from the language’s capability to break things down to simplify the management of large codebases. It supports real-time web development as well as stateful web infrastructure for large projects.
How Difficult Is It to Hire Developers With Elixir Skills and Experience?
As Elixir is still such a new language on the programming scene, there are not many junior engineers in the dev community at this time. This means that companies must hire middle or senior-level Elixir developers with experience in Erlang as well.
The good news is that the right mid-level developer should have the ability to pick it up with time. However, it’s worth noting that this isn’t a language for a new developer or someone without a strong understanding of functional programming. A good Elixir developer must know how to put the key features of the language - scalability, immutability, and low memory usage - to their advantage.
Generally, Elixir developers require a toolkit consisting of:
- Wombat - For use of Elixir and Erlang monitoring.
- HoneyBadger - To manage Elixir errors.
- Postman - A service for testing JSON APIs built on the language.
- HEX - A package manager for use with both Elixir and Erlang.
What are the advantages of using Elixir over other web development languages?
- It offers high scalability potential as it builds on Erlang’s syntax. This means it accommodates the needs of everything from artificial intelligence to Internet of Things applications. It also works for running apps on multiple virtual servers at the same time.
- Elixir’s concurrency means its apps support multithreading without hindering performance and offers continual efficiency.
- It’s a favorite language because of its many safety mechanisms. Elixir offers a robust failure alert system and its application elements are independent. This means that if there is a system failure, the various app components hosted on a different server continue to run.
- The language’s syntax is succinct and easy to understand.
- It supports real-time processing on both the server-side and the client-side.
What Is an Elixir Module?
A module within Elixir is a piece or section of Erlang code that consists of attributes and function declarations. A period symbol separates each module separation. Each module features a well-defined structure with a value and a tag as well. The value of said attribute is only allowed as a literal item while a tag is an atom. Attribute meanings are either user-defined or pre-defined.
How Does Elixir Handle Concurrency?
The concurrency of Elixir is thanks to the Actor model where a single process is considered an independent actor. The virtual machine then manages the data exchange generally while elements of the system also exchange data. Each process features fully isolated memory processes to ensure the independence of each element. Processes rely on the mailbox and commands for communication while also using loops to ensure long-running actor’s stability.
We are looking for a passionate and dedicated developer specializing in Elixir and Erlang programming languages. The right candidate has a solid foundation in computer science with a passion for software craftsmanship and clean code architecture. The ability to meet objectives, determine necessary app and software features/functionality, and the ability to recommend improvements for existing systems are required.
Job Responsibilities:
- Work independently or within a team of engineers to develop web applications, support for existing systems, APIs, and many other projects.
- Design and implement best practices for cross-functional teams.
- Design database schema.
- Design and develop multi-instance, scalable applications for AI and IoT projects.
- Collaborate with designers, other devs, stakeholders, and clients to formulate solutions based on business goals for successful execution.
- Participate in code review, pairing, and knowledge sharing as well as all phases of the product life cycle.
Qualifications:
- Bachelors of Science in Computer Science (or similar degree)
- 4+ years in software engineering experience
- 3+ years in Elixir specifically
- Experience developing services within AWS
- Database experience
- Tech Stack including Elixir Phoenix, Ruby on Rails, Erlang, Git, JavaScript, etc.
