What You Should Know on Your First Front-End Job Interview…
You are going to start a carrier as a front-end developer, which is awesome. There a lot of job opportunities where you can train your development skills on the job, which is perfectly OK if you are a junior developer.
But first… you have to pass that job interview. And indeed it is hard to prove your skills if you are new on the job.
No panic, if you are facing me as the software manager in your job interview for junior front-end developer, the chances are high that I am going to ask you one of the following questions.
Do you have side projects?
It is a big plus if you can show your love for coding, by giving examples of side projects where you put your spare time on.
It’s is OK if it is a hacky code. For me, it is more important that you get energy from building things. So don’t give me the impression that you code just for the money.
What did you learn in your internship?
This can be everything, from a technical feature to your communication skills.
I’m probably going to ask about how you experienced the coaching from your team. I would like to know how independent you can work and when you are going to ask for help. There is no good or bad answer to this, it is just good to know. Of course, you can count on the coaching from our team.
What is Agile?
You are going to work on an agile software team, shocking.
How the agile methodology is implemented at the company, it is different everywhere. It needs to fit in the DNA of the company to make it work. And it needs to work for the team too.
This way of working will changes through the time by input by the team, it would be a big plus if I can feel you are going to actively contribute with your ideas on this too.
What is the benefit of writing tests?
You may or not have experience with writing tests at school or your internship, that is not so important. I hope, however, that you see the benefit of writing tests as a coder and can explain them to me.
About your technical skills…
You have probably listed your experiences on your CV: Angular / React / Vue.js / TypeScript / Redux …
I’m going to ask you the simple question: please explain <your experience> to our HR — manager ( sitting next to me ) so she can easily understand it. As you may have guessed, the HR — manager isn’t a technical person.
If you give yourself a 5 / 5 rating on Angular for example, the chance is high that I’m going to ask you what is the difference between Angular/React or JavaScript / TypeScript.
Clean code
Imagine, you are seeing a piece of code that is written very well. How does that look?
You should have read a lot about “clean code” already, and you should understand the benefit of it. However, sometimes it is also influenced by a matter of taste. So an honest answer would be awesome.
Btw, I’m going to ask you 2 times “and what else?”.
Do you have a question for me?
Or please don’t say no on this one … or I would believe that you haven’t imagined yourself be working at our team.
Isn’t frightening to jump into a new team where you are going to spend a lot of your time?
I am sitting on that team already! I can tell you everything about it…
Technical interview
Cool! You are invited to a technical interview!
So you made a good impression and we believe you are a good candidate for the job.
But first, we are going to program a little bit together to see how it works.
I prepared a technical test, which we will solve together. You are free to ask me any questions and you are free to use the internet too. ( Because that is what every developer does )
For me, it is more important to see how you find your way to the solution, rather than the solution itself.
We will address some basic functional programming by using the platform we use in the project. I will let you review a piece of code to check your insights on clean code. And I will end with some basic JavaScript questions about the quirks the language has.
Good luck!
