Angular is a powerful framework that offers a variety of features to simplify the development of dynamic web applications. One of the essential features is its component-based architecture, which promotes reusability and better organization of code. Each component encapsulates its logic, styles, and templates, allowing developers to maintain a clear separation of concerns. Additionally, Angular provides an impressive data binding mechanism that ensures seamless synchronization between the model and the view, enhancing the user experience.

Another key feature of Angular is its robust dependency injection system. This design pattern facilitates better management of services, making it easy to share data and functionality across various parts of an application. Furthermore, Angular's built-in routing module enables developers to create single-page applications with smooth navigation and easy URL management. Together, these features empower developers to build dynamic, responsive web applications that meet modern user expectations.

Optimizing your Angular application for performance is essential to ensure a smooth user experience. Start by minimizing the size of your application. Utilize tools like the Angular CLI with the --prod flag to enable production mode, which includes Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation. This results in a significantly smaller bundle size and faster load times. Additionally, make use of lazy loading for your modules, which allows you to load only the necessary parts of your application as needed, rather than loading everything upfront.

Another key strategy is to implement trackBy when using ngFor. This helps Angular track items in a list more efficiently, reducing the number of DOM manipulations required and improving rendering time. Additionally, consider employing Angular’s ChangeDetectionStrategy to limit checks to only what is necessary. By setting the change detection to OnPush, you ensure that Angular runs change detection only when certain conditions are met, which can lead to significant performance gains in larger applications.

When working with Angular, developers often fall into common pitfalls that can hinder the performance and maintainability of their applications. One frequent mistake is excessive use of watchers. Watchers can significantly slow down an application when overused, especially in large applications with many data bindings. To avoid this, developers should aim to minimize the number of watchers by employing strategies such as using one-time bindings where appropriate and leveraging Angular's built-in features like track by in ng-repeat to reduce unnecessary checks during the digest cycle.

Another notable error is failing to utilize Angular's powerful dependency injection framework properly. Many developers neglect to take full advantage of this feature, resulting in tightly coupled components and reduced testability. To prevent this issue, it's advisable to familiarize yourself with Angular's service pattern and employ providers effectively. This not only promotes better separation of concerns but also enhances code reusability across different parts of your application. Remember, the key to a scalable Angular application is to ensure components are loosely coupled and can be easily tested in isolation.