June 26, 2007

Web devloper interview questions

1. Show me your code!
Whether it's plain old HTML or freakishly advanced ruby on rails, ask for code samples. Source code can say more about a persons work habits than you think. Clean, elegant code can often be indicative of a methodical, capable developer. A resume may say 7+ years of perl experience, but that could mean 7 years of bad, unreadable perl. Also, make sure you ask for a lot of source code, not just a few isolated functions or pieces of HTML. Anyone can clean up 20-30 lines of code for an interview, you want to see the whole shebang. Don't ask for a full, functional app, but make sure it's enough that you can tell it's really what their code is like.
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2. What are a few sites you admire and why? (from a webdev perspective)
Find out what inspires them. While it doesn't necessarily "take one to know one," a great developer should always have a few impressive favorites.
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3. Fix this code, please.
Give them some broken code written in the development language they are expected to know for the position. Have them go through it line by line and point out all the mistakes.
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4. I just pulled up the website you built and the browser is displaying a blank page. Walk me through the steps you'd take to troubleshoot the problem.
This is a great question to determine how well rounded their abilites are. It tests everything from basic support skills all the way up to troubleshooting the webserver itself.
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5. What's your favorite development language and why? What other features (if any) do you wish you could add to this language?
Asking about feature additions is a particularly valuable question - it can reveal if they're skilled in programming in general or if their skillset is pigeonholed into their language of choice.
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6. Do you find any particular languages or technologies intimidating?
I've often felt that the more I learn, the less I feel like I know. Solving one mystery opens up ten others. Having the interviewee tell you their faults can reveal a lot about what they know.
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7. Acronym time !
Some might argue that knowing what acronyms actually stand for is trivial, but there are certain acronyms that a developer should have hard-wired into their head ( HTML or CSS, for example). This is the kind of question that might be better reserved for the phone interview to weed out those who are very unqualified.
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8. What web browser do you use?
There is a right answer to this question: all of them. A competent developer should be familiar with testing cross-browser compatibility by using all the major web browsers. Obviously they'll have a primary browser they use for surfing, but their answer to this question might be a good way for you to segue to asking how extensively they test cross-browser issues. Also, if it's some kind of css/html position seeing what toolbars they have installed can be a good metric of their skillset (I personally find the web developer toolbar for firefox to be invaluable)
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9. Rank your interest in these development tasks from 1 to 5 (1 being not interested at all, 5 being extremely interested) Write up a list of tasks the job requires. Having them rank these items according to their interest level can help you find who is the best suited for the position. I know debugging uncommented perl code from 1997 sounds seriously awesome to me.
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10. What are a few personal web projects you've got going on?
Almost all developers have personal web projects they like to plug away at in their spare time. This is another question that can help differentiate the passionate developers from the clock-punchers. It's also a good question to end an interview with, as it's usually easy (and fun) for them to answer.

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