What Front-End Interview Questions Should I Ask a Developer?
From assessing company culture fit to learning about a candidate’s ability to problem solve, here are 10 answers to the question, “What are good front-end interview questions to ask a front-end developer?”
- What is Your Coding Personality?
- How Do You Keep Up With the Latest Trends and Technologies?
- What Front-End Languages Are You Proficient In?
- What Is Your Experience With Developing Website Accessibility?
- How Do You Maintain User-Friendly and Efficient Web Interfaces?
- What’s Your Process for Debugging Cross-Browser Compatibility Issues?
- What Have You Accomplished for a Client that You Are Most Proud Of, and Why?
- How Will You Ensure the Website is Search Engine Friendly?
- What is Your Approach to Optimizing Website Performance?
- Assessing Critical Thinking With a Real-World Problem
What is Your Coding Personality?
One of the best front-end questions to ask is, “How would you describe your own personality in coding?” This question reveals a lot about the candidate’s approach to work and how they work with others. It is also a great way to assess whether the candidate would be a good fit for the company culture.
Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Paraphrase Tool
How Do You Keep Up With the Latest Trends and Technologies?
Staying up to date with the latest trends and technologies in front-end development is crucial to being successful in this field. When interviewing a front-end developer, I would ask them about their approach to staying current with the latest developments in the tech industry.
Some excellent resources that they might mention could include online forums and communities, such as Reddit or Stack Overflow, industry-specific blogs, and publications, or attending conferences and webinars.
Make sure that the developer you hire commits to ongoing learning and development and has a solid plan in place for keeping up with new trends and technologies.
Natalia Brzezinska, Marketing and Outreach Manager, ePassportPhoto
What Front-End Languages Are You Proficient In?
I can say that one of the best questions to ask is about their current and future programming languages. The question should be: “What front-end languages are you proficient in, and which ones would you like to learn in the future?”
It’s important to assess their current skill set and see if it aligns with the needs of your company, but it’s equally important to gauge their openness to learning and growing in their career.
When asking this question, it’s important to allow the candidate to showcase their expertise and highlight their areas of interest. By understanding their current language proficiency and future aspirations, you can gauge how they will fit within your organization and determine if they have the potential to contribute to your team’s success.
Remember, a great front-end developer is someone who not only has a solid foundation in programming languages but also has the drive and motivation to continue learning and growing in their career.
Luciano Colos, Founder and CEO, PitchGrade
What Is Your Experience With Developing Website Accessibility?
Accessibility is a critical aspect of front-end development that often gets overlooked, so one important question to ask front-end developer candidates is “What is your experience with accessibility, and can you describe how you ensure your websites are accessible to users with disabilities?”
Accessible websites allow companies to reach a wider audience and help make the web a more inclusive place. A suitable candidate will describe specific accessibility guidelines and how they apply them in their work. They should also be able to show an understanding of the importance of accessibility and the impact that inaccessible websites can have on users with disabilities.
Samuel Johns, CPRW and Career Counselor, Resume Genius
How Do You Maintain User-Friendly and Efficient Web Interfaces?
Discussing their familiarity with responsive design principles and experience implementing frameworks such as Bootstrap or Foundation can provide a comprehensive understanding of their technical proficiency. Also, inquiring about their approach to handling cross-browser compatibility issues allows you to gain insight into their problem-solving skills and adaptability.
Exploring their knowledge of JavaScript libraries, like jQuery, and modern front-end tools, such as React or Angular, can help you assess their ability to stay current with industry trends and deliver innovative solutions.
Michael Lazar, Executive, ReadyCloud
What’s Your Process for Debugging Cross-Browser Compatibility Issues?
Ask the candidate to walk you through their process for debugging cross-browser compatibility issues. Front-end development entails creating user interfaces that should be accessible and responsive across a multitude of browsers and devices.
Problems with the app working on different web browsers can negatively affect a person’s experience and stop the app from succeeding. It’s critical to assess how candidates approach cross-browser compatibility issues to determine if they have the right technical and debugging knowledge and skill set to mitigate these issues.
Will Baker, Founder, Skirtings R Us
What Have You Accomplished for a Client That You Are Most Proud Of, and Why?
This question prompts the candidate to recall a time when they helped solve a problem for a client or company. This can be very telling of the bottlenecks they can help solve for your website, which is especially important in the e-commerce space.
Answering this question also gives the candidate a chance to shine in their response, and their reaction can help employers gauge their passion for their work.
Nabeel Abdullah, CEO, Sapphire
How Will You Ensure the Website is Search Engine Friendly?
It is crucial to building a website that potential customers can easily find on search engines like Google. Front-end developers often skip this and focus on aspects that are visible to users, but not search engine crawlers (for example, missing meta tags, crawlability of the website).
Eimantas Aukstikalnis, Founder, LaptopRadar
What is Your Approach to Optimizing Website Performance?
This question is important because website performance is a critical factor in delivering a good user experience, and front-end developers play a key role in optimizing website performance.
A strong front-end developer should be able to show a solid understanding of website performance optimization techniques like these:
– Minimizing HTTP requests by reducing the number of files and scripts loaded on a page
– Optimizing images by compressing them and using appropriate file formats
– Using efficient CSS and JavaScript code to reduce page load times
– Implementing caching and content delivery networks (CDNs) to improve website speed
– Analyzing website performance using tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest
Harsh Verma, SEO Head, Codedesign
Assessing Critical Thinking With a Real-World Problem
A great front-end interview question that you can ask a front-end developer is to present them with a real-world problem that requires a good amount of critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
An example is: “Imagine I have given you a design mockup for a responsive website.
The designer has used non-standard fonts and complex animations. How would you approach implementing this design to ensure the website is accessible, performs well, and is compatible with different browsers and devices?”
This question would allow the candidate to showcase their understanding of better UX with accessibility, performance optimization, and cross-browser compatibility while demonstrating their ability to think critically and adapt to various design challenges.
Basana Saha, Founder and Editor, KidsCareIdeas
