Qs: Running An Interview
This section is about running interviews.
You might want to read this even if it's YOU being interviewed. You will then understand better what interviewers look for.
TECH INTERVIEW
Overall Categories
Here are 5 overall categories of topics you may want to dig into during interviews:
Code Quality
Accessibility
Performance
Security
Decision-Making
Bogdan Answers
In terms of mindset, a good interviewer will always have a mental grading system like a rainbow and will try to see where the candidate is on that scale rather than a binary system of good/bad. So, in terms of coding for example you start with some easy problem (closures, array iteration) and then a mid one (maybe recursion) and then a very hard one like debounce, throttle or promisify. This allows you to see where they are without making it too easy so they all pass, or too hard so they all go blank.
On the workflow you want to know:
can they deploy the app?
can they fix live bugs by themselves (debugging skills, observability)?
do they know best practices (solid, TDD, web performance, accessibility)?
how good are their fundamentals(browsers API, frontend tooling)?
are they pragmatic (applied solid, mindfull testing)?
are they easy to work with(PR conflicts, technical disagreements, disagree and commit principle, etc)
When you ask them a question like can you tell me "what you know about the bundling/build process of modern app?" you can score the answer: a. junior - blank out b. mid-level - mentions webpack, basic configurations c. senior - mentions transpiling, dependency tree, bundle splitting, details or specific webpack configurations, real life examples
If you do that you will have a great profile of each candidate.
It is not about the best one in terms of technical skills but the one that fits in the team (communication styles, technical strengths that are missing, easy to work with).
Nathan Answers
Asking a "good question" as an interviewer in a technical interview includes:
help me to find out the ability of the candidate
help me to find out whether the candidate can collaborate with me and our team well
a. Prepare different levels of technical questions
before the interview and ask these questions to assess the candidate's technical understanding level.
b. Prepare "good questions" relevant to candidate's resume
For preparing, I also spent time reading their resumes before the interviews, which helped me understand more about their background, specialization, and past project experiences. This preparation helped me to ask more relevant and in-depth questions, both related to the candidate's background and our hiring role requirements. For example, if a candidate has a related project experience listed on their resume, then I can prepare some relevant questions to ask.
c. On-the-fly "good questions" by listening well during the interview:
During an interview, I think that both listening and guiding skills are important for understanding the candidate better. Some candidates may provide a short answer to my questions (maybe they are nervous to speak, they don't know how deeply they should answer, or it is how they usually answer, ...), which I expect to hear more, then I need to ask more follow-up questions based on their answer. Or some candidate may answer my questions in the wrong direction, I had to listen carefully where they go and tried to guide them or give them some tips to answer my questions.
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