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Discussion on: Decoding the Front-end Interview Process

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httpjunkie profile image
Eric Bishard • Edited

Front End interviews are crazy nowadays, So hard to study for. I first started interviewing for Front End opportunities back in 2014-2015. At that point if you had a solid understanding of JS, CSS and HTML you would not have many problems.

But this last year in 2018, I interviewed with Paypal, Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Airbnb, Cruise, Google and I'm sure I'm missing a few. The interviews were all different. Airbnb was truly tough, they got straight to the point, they have a very specific way of working with JS using classes and objects and despite all other front end skills I was kicked out of the process on my second interview because I was not as knowledgeable about their specific style of working with JS.

They could care less that I was very strong in the UI area, that I was a member of the JavaScript community, that I had worked with JS for 20 years and learned very quickly. They didn't care that I had full stack skills, Instead, it was only important that I be able to answer one specific question that was very specific to the way they did things in that one department.

I spoke with one person, and was also rejected by that one person.

Facebook actually has a good approach, they progressively get tougher as the interviews go and they are able to know exactly where you land as a front end developer and they have a good idea of what your strengths and weaknesses are and they are prepared to help and understand that you may not have trained all summer on their very specific way of doing things.

Today's front-end interviews can run the gamut. Great advice in this article, but I warn people that the front end is potentially more complex these days than it was only a few years ago. Good luck!

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James Buczkowski

99% of devs (probably more) are not interviewing at Paypal, Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Airbnb, Cruise, or Google. More often than not, you are interviewing at a company you have very little knowledge of, and the bit that you do know about them, you are corrected about on the interview.

One of the main reasons why the Front End is so complex now is because you have companies like Airbnb doing their own thing and then blogging about it. Then devs at these random companies feel that they need to do things the Airbnb way and end up creating a disaster then leave.

The cycle continues on and on and on. Devs trying to be too smart, instead of just building something reasonable.

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Tomas Eglinskas

^ This

I think everyone should have this in mind. I also had FE interviews, where the only FE concept I had were ordered lists. In bigger companies, you will usually be tested on your understanding as a whole - DS, Recursion, other Algorithms and Fundamentals of FE (of course it will depend). In lesser ones, you'll probably encounter more coding knowledge testing.

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suriya

Hey Eric,

I just want to develop my skills, and i'm trying to get into product based companies like mentioned above. my questions is, What will be your technical question if you interview me? i'm basically Front End developer having 4 years of experience, and 2 years in Angular 2+.

you response will definitely help me in future.

Cheers.!