Recently, I had a chance to design a take-home interview challenge for Junior Frontend developers.
We've all heard (some even been part of) those horror stories when one would get a take-home, which would take days to complete.
This is what I wanted to avoid yet get enough insight into the candidate's experience. So I aimed to make something that could make a decent addition to the candidate's personal portfolio and take 2-3 hours to complete at most.
I ended up with a challenge with the following three requirements.
Integrating with a REST API ⚙️
Frequently, a frontend doesn't function by itself. It integrates with an API. Here, the candidate gets a functioning REST API that they need to figure out how to use.
Implement client-side data validation. 👀
As we all know, frontends are built for humans who interact with those. That data can be malformed. This app would make all the necessary checks before sending anything to the backend.
Document your choices. 📝
Last but not least, it's handy when all critical decisions are adequately documented so that we don't have to reverse-engineer the code months later. So the candidates are expected to write down any such choices they made while building this app.
How do you approach creating a new challenge? 🙌
I'm now curious to hear about your process (if any 😅) for coming up and iterating on your coding interview assignments.
Let's have a healthy discussion in the comments below. 👇
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