I've had similar experiences in the last month of interviews i've been through. I was asked how i'd design a secure backend API in asp.net, various algorithm questions, some basic javascript questions ("what is a closure?", "what does the var keyword do?", etc") and other very non-specific things. At the end of most of my interviews when they ask if I have any questions about the positions I tend to have to ask "Is this a Front end Developer position you just interviewed me for?" Not once have any of the interviewers been front-end devs, only SVP of Development or Director of Design or some other inflated title. I want to talk about problems i've had building Angular or Knockout apps or or cross-browser JS/CSS issues.
Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
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Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#12Those are excellent suggestions in the "My Suggestions" section. Thanks for the article.
Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#13It could have been a sign that they trusted your front-end skill. If I know someone has a skill, I don't waste my time interviewing them to prove it. I try to figure out what else they can do, where they can grow, and how well they would fit in with the team. So I'd pose the question back to you -- did you provide them a portfolio or any code samples that would have made the front-end questions redundant?
I was thinking along the same lines. I would be curious to see his resume, as the content could potentially influence the interviewer to ask certain types of questions.
Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#14Similar in NYC. I remember an interview where I was asked to bit-shift in Javascript, for the sake of itself.
I've also had good experiences though--I liked one where I had to build certain UI components and get my code evaluated in real-time.
Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#15You'd hope that before they bring you in they know that you know basic front end stuff. To be honest most front end tech is simply memorization of standards and idiosyncrasies between browsers. Anyone can go through and figure this stuff out via a simple google search. On the other hand taking say data from a Ajax call and sorting it or filtering it with custom logic takes some creative problem solving to do it gracefully.
Interviewees always forget to figure out why they interviewer and company is asking these questions or requiring particular knowledge. Next time just ask them!
Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#16"I'd rather hire a smart person and teach them X then hire someone who knows everything about X but lacks creativity, logic, and reasoning." False dichotomy. How about a smart person who knows a lot about X and is creative and logical? They do exist. I feel like many interviewers want to categorize someone in to one of those two categories from the outset - "this person already knows a lot about XYZ, therefore, I'd r…
It's more like, "we want smart people, so let's optimize our interview process to find smart people, and give everyone the same interview questions."
The problem here is that firms tend to prefer giving "engineering interview problems" to everyone, and do not want to segment interview questions by position.
Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#17"I'd rather hire a smart person and teach them X then hire someone who knows everything about X but lacks creativity, logic, and reasoning." False dichotomy. How about a smart person who knows a lot about X and is creative and logical? They do exist. I feel like many interviewers want to categorize someone in to one of those two categories from the outset - "this person already knows a lot about XYZ, therefore, I'd r…
It's more like, "we want smart people, so let's optimize our interview process to find smart people, and give everyone the same interview questions." The problem here is that firms tend to prefer giving "engineering interview problems" to everyone, and do not want to segment interview questions by position.
Because that takes a lot more time for the interviewers. For a growing tech company, they could have as many open reqs as they have engineers. Crafting questions for all of those positions takes a lot of time that most companies don't have time to do.
Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like, "we want smart people, so let's optimize our interview process to find smart people, and give everyone the same interview questions." The problem here is that firms tend to prefer giving "engineering interview problems" to everyone, and do not want to segment interview questions by position.
Because that takes a lot more time for the interviewers. For a growing tech company, they could have as many open reqs as they have engineers. Crafting questions for all of those positions takes a lot of time that most companies don't have time to do.
Ideally they should be having people in that area of expertise doing the interviewing of the candidate, since they have ready access to the domain specific information to ask relevant questions.
Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#19You were interviewed by back-end engineers. That's what they knew.
My question is why didn't you leave the interview upon seeing it was a waste of time?
Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco
#20I'm sorry you had to go through that bullshit. That generally sucks when you're interviewed by assholes who have no idea that the specific platform that you might work on requires. Consider most front-end engineers ALSO to be designers, and I'd suspect thats where I would drive the interview. I would wish the same treatment. Also lol that the interview questions are basically EITHER memorizing formulas and rememberin…
I think we are also seeing the rise of the frontend developer, where they spend most of their time on JS, with maybe some time in HTML and CSS - at least, that is what I do for work, although I am fully capable of excelling at CSS as well.