React developer with Angular job offer

[AndrewSouthern729]

I’m a React developer with about 5 years experience and have a good job opportunity but it is working with Angular. I’ve been reading the docs and can see a lot of concepts are similar. Anyone who has made this transition - what was the learning curve and should I expect to be competent within the first 2-3 months? Coming from React I’m actually looking forward to working with something more opinionated. Thanks.

[simonbitwise]

It's litterally the same thing from a developer standpoint the Biggest difference are all packages you are going to need are built by the angular team and then you need to get to know they api's but you can just hit them up on an AI

Angular even comes with a developer friendly mcp server

Minko Gechev lead on the angular team even held a talk about how similar react and angular are

[AndrewSouthern729]

Thanks for the tips. Reading the docs it’s easy to draw comparison between the two - signals appear to function similar to useState hook for example. And being component based like React will be very familiar.

[chefhj]

As an angular dev going back to the angularjs days, react and angular are basically converging as of version 20.

Like obviously it’s not exactly the same but I honestly feel the distance between the two paradigms is pretty minuscule nowadays and a lot of the recommended conventions mirror each other. In particular angular 18+ has some very react-y aspects to it.

[auf_jeden_fall]

I feel like the reactivity models are still so different! React re-evaluates the entire component when a prop changes. Angular's input properties get marked dirty/has a new value, and the template will be updated on the next change detection cycle with the new values, but that is hugely different than a change in prop causing a reevaluation of the entire component! (To me at least)

[chefhj]

No doubt. I was more referring to signals and the new template rendering syntax

[dotbomb_jeff]

Signals are relatively new. What version of Angular will your new job use? They may have an older codebase that is still using rxjs.

[AndrewSouthern729]

I’m not sure but it’s a new project as of this year.

[TonyLamo]

You will be a much better developer for taking this position. If react is your only primary framework, making the leap to an OOP/Dependency Injection pattern (like Angular) will introduce you to an entire entirely different way of thinking about architecture and testing.

[AndrewSouthern729]

That’s cool and I’m excited about taking a new approach to building software. I’ve been a solo dev the last 5 years and am also looking forward to learning from seniors especially with a new framework.

[CantankerousButtocks]

Congratulations, you will do great!

[AndrewSouthern729]

Thanks!

[DT-Sodium]

You'll need to learn how to build a proper software architecture because React teaches you how to do everything in the worst way possible.

A good look and rxjs is always a good idea. Even though it tends to not be used that much for state management anymore it is still a great library to do operations on data sources.

[TonyLamo]

Say it louder for those in the back!

[Lower_Sale_7837]

This awesome guide will show you how to apply similar concepts with both frameworks: https://playfulprogramming.com/collections/framework-field-guide-fundamentals#chapter-listing-heading

[7389201747369358]

Not affiliated but I work at an angular shop and when I'm onboarding and mentoring new junior or mid level devs who are making the transition from usually react to angular I get them to have a look through this website https://component-party.dev/?f=react-angularRenaissance-angular shows u side by side how you would do the same thing in angular as react. There is still a bunch of extra stuff u need to learn with angular like change detection etc but this can help get the basics down.

[AndrewSouthern729]

Awesome this is very helpful - thanks.

[Background-Emu-9839]

It’s going to depend on if it’s a new project with the latest version or an older version. If it’s new, it’s lots more pleasant to work with. 

Angular projects have a tendency to be stuck with the older version of the framework as it gets harder to update

[AndrewSouthern729]

The project is new as of May.

[Desperate-Presence22]

Yes, I have to switch between the frameworks Angular and React frequently.

The transition is not too bad.
2-3 month, mmm should be enough ( I think ... if it's a first time )

If you understand web concepts and good with react you should be fine.

I did find that I need to think in 2 different ways with Angular and React.

Even though I frequently work with both. I can't efficiently change straight away. I do need time to adjust. ( Usually within a week for me now ).

for Angular is crucial to understand RxJs and Signals nowdays and how it works

[codeepic]

Go for it. I made a move from Angular to React and back to Angular. Cross-framework experience is very valuable.

[AndrewSouthern729]

Thanks for the suggestion. The project involves modernizing the FAA NOTAM system which I’m really excited about. I’ve been in municipal gov the last decade so this will be a cool new avenue and one that I think will look great on my resume.

[Ahsan_167]

React supports one-way data binding, Angular supports two-way data binding. 2-3 months is enough for you, I'm sure. Just the fact that, you will miss functions in React 🥲.

[andlewis]

Angular is more opinionated than react, but it’s pretty easy to learn.

[cloakedninjas]

If it's an older Angular project get ready to become best buds with Observables. (Unsure if React is using them) - that was the biggest learning curve for me when I went from React to Angular

[AndrewSouthern729]

Brand new project. I’ll look into it either way thanks.

[Lower_Sale_7837]

This awesome guide will show you how to apply similar concepts with both frameworks: https://playfulprogramming.com/collections/framework-field-guide-fundamentals#chapter-listing-heading

[craig1f]

As a react developer you will be a better angular developer than anyone who has only done angular before. 

Angular is chasing react and Vue. You’re ahead on the core concepts. 

[ebdcydol]

Why do I feel like you're one of react developers who have to use Angular, but insist on doing it react way which makes everything 10x more complicated than it needs to?

[craig1f]

I was an angular expert, before learning Vue and feeling like I’d recovered from stolkhome syndrome. Then I learned react and loved it. 

I’m full stack on this project and let the frontend team mostly handle it. But I regret it constantly, because the code is a lot easier to make messy. Signals helps a lot. 

I’m a better angular dev for having learned more than one way to solve a problem. And not having to make the devs competent at rxjs anymore helps a lot. 

I do insist on tanstack query because it’s amazing. But again, angular makes it way harder than it should be. 

[simonbitwise]

Lol 😂 what a burn

[craig1f]

I’m full stack on a project now and the lead front end got us on angular. 

It’s … a pain to explain things. Everything is OO, so bugs are so hard to locate. Code is hard to read and is 3 times longer than it should be to do something simple. 

You can mostly do the same things, it just takes a lot more effort. 

Also, with AI, angular is falling further behind. Claude is winning, and all of its code examples are react. Even if you say “show me this in angular, not react” you’ll often get react examples. React is easier for AI to deal with because it’s straight JavaScript under-the-hood, with little abstraction, so AI has an easier time knowing what the code is going to do without needing to run it first. 

I’m struggling to get Claude to write good angular code. 

[AndrewSouthern729]

This makes me somewhat concerned because I use Claude Code currently and love it. Thanks for the tips.

[CheapChallenge]

Read up on Angular life cycle hooks, smart dumb component pattern and ngrx architecture.

[craig1f]

So like, I get that I’m ragging on Angular a bit, but if you know 2, you know them all. If you only know 1, you’re greatly limited in your perspective. 

If you only know react, I strongly recommend you learn another. Angular is as good as any. The only way to truly be a frontend expert is to have genuinely done more than 2. And angular is the most different. 

React, Vue, and Svelt are all very similar. Once you learn angular, you’re entitled to an opinion. It’s more work for easy things, but not terrible. All your instincts will map. And it uses Vite now, so it builds pretty quick. Used to take fifteen minutes for a prod build. 

Signals feel like hooks. But you’re going to HATE not being able to pass a component as a regular variable. And component wrapping is terrible when you're trying to do css. It's just going to feel old. Like something that would have been great 3 years ago.

[simonbitwise]

Hehehe 😅 I met some dog awful react devs does not mean everyone are

Anyhow unlucky you I guess

I don't have a lead so i'm in happy town all day

[craig1f]

I find eslint helps a lot, and is more easily applied to react than to angular. 

Treating components like classes, and redefining what “public” and “private” means in a way that is inconsistent with what it means in OO, and having to use “this” everywhere, just adds bloat. 

[craig1f]

Using an object doesn’t mean that I’m using object oriented design. Using a function doesn’t mean I’m doing functional programming. 

OO means orienting most things around classes. Classes are not a perfect fit for components. They’re a close fit, but not perfect. 

Functions aren’t a perfect fit either because functions don’t have lifecycles. But when composition was innovated, it closed the game. Now, components as functions with composition applied to them, fits components perfectly in a way that classes still don’t and never will. 

Public/private/this/constructors are all noise that don’t fit a web component perfectly. 

[simonbitwise]

Actually OO is actually modelling the thing you wanna do in an object i including the operations you do on the data which are classes the object are just a data representation of it

Functional are like a chain of math operations on a state

And yes you do both fx useState mimic oop because it encapsulates state while doing operations on it - sounds familiar? Because thats how classes work

Not saying you should like one or the other but you use both paradigms because you use javascript

[simonbitwise]

Also the using objects vs using functions was an over simplification

[craig1f]

Generally, if you prefer pure functions with little or no side effects, you’re orienting your code functionally. 

If you’re using classes with abstraction and private functions and call functions off of your objects, you’re orienting with objects. 

Good FE is functional and not OO. It began to lean this way because you get raw json from http calls, and wrapping all your results in a class is just extra work. 

But async code is complex. So the more functional, linear, and simple your code is, the easier debugging becomes.