Why React Developers Are Struggling: 7 Mistakes to Avoid

Original Post: https://blog.probirsarkar.com/7-mistakes-react-developers-make-in-post-covid-era-fa63d901dfb1

React JS is now at its peak, and everyone in the web development community is talking about it. Every other company is using React JS for their next big billion-dollar project or startup. Next JS takes this to the next level with SSR, SSG, and full-stack development. But Next JS has its pros and cons — you can read my other blogs, “7 Reasons Developers hate Next.JS” and “7 Reasons Developers Love Next.JS.”

As a result, there’s a huge demand for React JS developers. It’s just a demand and supply game. In the pre-COVID-19 era, when companies started moving their business or some part of it online, the demand for React developers increased. Back then, there were fewer developers, so companies paid more than usual. Then COVID-19 came, and businesses needed to shift online fast. Demand just went up and up, and the pay scale for React developers increased too. While all other sectors faced salary decreases or layoffs, the development sector, especially frontend, was at its own peak. So naturally, every engineer or anyone interested in IT tried to get a job in React JS.

Now, the situation has shifted. Companies are going back to the office, and many of their online businesses have failed. To make things worse, AI came and increased efficiency for existing engineers, leading to less hiring and a drop in pay scales — again, a basic demand and supply game. Companies are taking advantage of the lower pay scales, hiring cheap engineers, and thinking freshers can do what seniors do with AI coding tools.

At first, everything looks good, but something is going on with fresher developers who are overly dependent on AI and libraries. I am going to explain this based on my experience.

1. Blindly Trusting Libraries Without Understanding Them

Adding a library for everything is common nowadays. I’ve seen a tweet where someone used a library just to check whether a number is even or odd. No one cares about bundle size or code maintainability — whether it’s updated or from a trusted source. They just add and go, without thinking.

2. Not Learning Fundamentals

Nowadays, HTML and CSS seem to have almost no value. New developers barely spend time on these or even on JavaScript. For them, useState, useEffect, and components are all the JavaScript they need. Some developers with a few years of experience have never even heard of DOM manipulation—the basic foundation of web development. They all started with React and never tried pure HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I totally understand that React can handle everything, but if you don’t have fundamental knowledge of how it works, you are limited by React’s capabilities. Even though React provides useEffect for handling browser events and more, many developers misuse it for API calls.

3. Over-Dependent on AI Tools

I’ve seen some code working completely fine, but when developers need to add a new feature or modify it, they are completely lost. One developer came to me asking how to add a feature. I asked what his thought process was when writing the code to align with his idea — he was blank. He had just copy-pasted it from ChatGPT. I had to rewrite the entire code again. Some developers argue that you only need to prepare for job interviews and that for the actual job, AI is there to help. They even say companies should ask what you do in your job, not all the so-called old-school theories. I get that DSA is important, but freshers should be given a chance to learn actual coding, not just theory.

4. Ignoring Component Reusability and Clean Code

New developers use React, which is built for reusable components, but they treat it as if they are building traditional pages. When they create a page using React Router, they consider it a full-page reload, even though it’s technically soft routing, and they struggle to understand this. They write all the page logic and JSX in a single file. Once, I forced a developer to break it into components, and he got stuck — he didn’t know how to access data from the parent component. I told him to pass props, but even after passing them, it still didn’t work. When I checked, I saw he wasn’t receiving the props in the function parameters. Writing clean code is a whole other challenge — like creating two different pages for add and edit functionality when the form is the same and only needs minor logic toggles. Still, they make two separate pages.

5. Misusing useState and useEffect Hooks

I’ve seen some projects where useState and useEffect are used for everything. For example, if there’s a need to store an address, it can easily be done using a single useState with an address object. However, some developers create separate useState variables for each field—address, pincode, state, country, location, contact number, etc.—instead of using a single state object. They have never tried or even heard of useReducer for handling complex logic.

useEffect is misused the most—multiple useEffect calls sometimes create infinite loops. Developers even use useEffect for small calculations where it’s not needed. For example:

Bad Example:

const [cartItems, setCartItems] = useState([
  /* array of items */
]);
const [cartTotal, setCartTotal] = useState(0);
useEffect(() => {
  const total = cartItems.reduce((sum, item) => sum + item.price, 0);
  setCartTotal(total);
}, [cartItems]);

Good Example:

const [cartItems, setCartItems] = useState([
  /* array of items */
]);
const totalCartValue = cartItems.reduce((sum, item) => sum + item.price, 0);

Here, totalCartValue updates when cartItems change, so there's no need for useEffect. Yet, developers misuse useEffect for simple things like this all the time.

6. Poor Understanding of Full-Stack Development

React is great for the frontend, but many freshers don’t understand the backend. They struggle with REST APIs, GraphQL, databases, authentication flows (OAuth, JWT, SSO), and SSR in Next.js. This makes them overly dependent on backend developers for things they should have at least a basic understanding of.

7. Chasing Trends Instead of Building Strong Foundation

The hype around React, Next.js, and new libraries tempts developers to jump on every trend without mastering the basics. They spend time learning the latest shiny tool — like a new Vercel feature or state management library — but can’t explain how React’s virtual DOM works or why SSR matters. When the hype fades or a tool changes, they get stuck, while people with a strong foundation adapt easily.

Finally
React is awesome, but it’s not a magic stick. Freshers now face a tough time — AI and libraries help speed up development, but relying too much on them is a trap. Companies hire cheap developers now, but later regret it when poorly trained developers can’t produce good code.

If you’re just starting out, don’t skip the basics. Think about your code, and learn what the industry needs right now. That’s how you win in this post-COVID game — not just as a “React developer,” but as a real coder.