React Is Not One Skill — Price It Like Five
React is the dominant frontend framework, but 'React developer' is now an umbrella over five distinct skill sets: component architecture, state management (Redux/Zustand/Jotai), data fetching (TanStack Query/RSC), Next.js App Router patterns, and rendering performance. Senior React contractors are paid for the combination — not the bare ability to write a function component.
The market has split sharply between React generalists at $80–$110/hr and senior TypeScript-first React engineers shipping Next.js production apps at $150–$210/hr. Server Components, Suspense boundaries, and Core Web Vitals optimization are the skills that put you in the upper band.