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Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

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Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#91

Post by platz »

teleclimber wrote: post #77
steven777400 wrote: post #33

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

To the people who wish they could answer that question with confidence, I recommend getting this book: http://www.amazon.com/Effective-JavaScript-Specific-Software... Just got it and I feel like it clarified so many things about Javascript that I didn't have down cold as a self-taught pragmatist.

I felt Effective Javascript was pretty on par with The Good Parts, and even better in some aspects.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#92

Post by spencewah »

nicholas73 wrote: post #84
dustingetz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

!!!! This kind of knowledge is acquired by reading 'Javascript the Good Parts'. It goes without saying that someone who considers themselves a good frontend engineer has read this book. edit: I am a frontend tech lead (not even in SV!!) and my most junior engineer will answer the question correctly. I can't even fathom how one could contribute to a non-toy app without knowing this.

People tend to remember things that they do, not what they read, much less from what they hear in lecture. The odds that I'm right is high because nobody was able to answer the question satisfactorily.

I had to do a short javascript project at work and the differences between the various function invocations was one of the first things I learned. That and how to deal with the disastrous scoping issues.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#93

Post by nicholas73 »

scrabble wrote: post #88
nicholas73 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, should answering this question be expected of a non-senior dev? This kind of knowledge is acquired by running into broken code - that is, by chance. I'd think someone with a couple years experience only could conceivably not, for example, have called a method directly and had this refer to a global object instead. Until then one might just assume Javascript's this works like this in other languages. In f…

This kind of knowledge is super basic, so yes, I'd expect anyone interviewing for a front-end position to know the meaning of 'this.'

The answer the interviewer was looking for seems to expect knowledge of how 'this' is different in Javascript versus other languages, and how things can go wrong. That is different from simply knowing that 'this' refers to an object.

Since this is for a junior position, conceivably an applicant could be a recent CS grad with no formal JS training, and hacked some projects on a side or job. And thus never by happenstance run into this issue, even if he read it somewhere sometime.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#94

Post by benched »

badman_ting wrote: post #58
byroot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always include something around `this` behaviour in my interviews if the position is Javascript related. You cannot possibly have a decent experience in JS without have been bit by this. And I'm always amazed by the amount of developers that just do not understand how it works, and bind every possible methods.

Anyone who claims to know JS and doesn't have "this" down cold is either a disaster waiting to happen, or a disaster in progress.

Now, hold on there. These "anyone who" statements chafe me; like the junior dev who exclaimed "anyone who doesn't write unit tests shouldn't call themselves an engineer" in a meeting filled with people 15 years his senior who had collectively shipped far, far more successful software than him, without writing tests.

Several years ago, I led two different front-end web teams at a large, well-known company. I wrote a lot of JavaScript then. In fact, I wrote the core JS framework for one of the apps. I probably understood "this" at that time. I couldn't begin to tell you now, because I've been working on hit iOS games since - probably without knowing a lot of the nuances of Obj-C at times! There was no disaster back then - we shipped high-quality sites on time. There would be no disaster now, because if I went back to JS I'd crack a book.

The most important skills I bring to any project are a lot higher-level than the details of a particular language. I haven't made my career on one language or platform, but dozens of them. For the details, I work with reference material handy. After a month, I probably have a good grasp of whatever I'm working with. A year after that project, I probably don't, but I could bring it back easily.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#95

Post by bjryan »

csomar wrote: post #27
bjryan wrote: post #4

I am honestly a little shocked by this. I am a university student and this past semester I interviewed with around 10 companies in the Bay area, all of which were for Front-End engineering positions. I can only think of one company which did not give me any 'front end specific' questions. I was asked everything from hoisting and closures to explaining how Webkit works and various ways to improve page load time. Are y…

He interviewed at big co. and (I guess), you interviewed at startups. Maybe that's the difference?

I interviewed at both. The larger companies were more likely to give me 'programming challenges' or puzzles (usually small mockups) for me to do ahead of times while startups tended to be more conversational and, quite frankly, didn't ask as hard of questions.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#96

Post by [deleted] »

wturner wrote: post #80
steven777400 wrote: post #33

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

I've been doing Javascript for a few years and recently answered a few StackOverflow questions. One was regarding "this".If anyone wants to hire my ass feel free to contact me. One of my techniques for learning has been by going on interviews and flopping, then going back and learning all the interview question material on my own time. Wash and repeat.I've been doing this bullshit since the first day I started teachi…

[deleted]

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#97

Post by lemonberry »

wturner wrote: post #80
steven777400 wrote: post #33

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

I've been doing Javascript for a few years and recently answered a few StackOverflow questions. One was regarding "this".If anyone wants to hire my ass feel free to contact me. One of my techniques for learning has been by going on interviews and flopping, then going back and learning all the interview question material on my own time. Wash and repeat.I've been doing this bullshit since the first day I started teachi…

This is a great, great idea. Thank you for the tip.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#98

Post by badman_ting »

benched wrote: post #94
badman_ting wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who claims to know JS and doesn't have "this" down cold is either a disaster waiting to happen, or a disaster in progress.

Now, hold on there. These "anyone who" statements chafe me; like the junior dev who exclaimed "anyone who doesn't write unit tests shouldn't call themselves an engineer" in a meeting filled with people 15 years his senior who had collectively shipped far, far more successful software than him, without writing tests. Several years ago, I led two different front-end web teams at a large, well-known company. I wrote a l…

That's cool. But don't write JS if you don't know what this does, because it will bite you.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#99

Post by lemonberry »

nicholas73 wrote: post #93
scrabble wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of knowledge is super basic, so yes, I'd expect anyone interviewing for a front-end position to know the meaning of 'this.'

The answer the interviewer was looking for seems to expect knowledge of how 'this' is different in Javascript versus other languages, and how things can go wrong. That is different from simply knowing that 'this' refers to an object. Since this is for a junior position, conceivably an applicant could be a recent CS grad with no formal JS training, and hacked some projects on a side or job. And thus never by happensta…

As someone that is self-taught via books, websites and finding stuff out on Stackoverflow, etc. I feel like everyone should know this. I hear all languages have their quirks, but this is emphasized so much in JS that if you don't have at least a passing familiarity with it I'd wonder how learned the language. However, most people are way smarter than me and maybe they're learning through reading code and just building. In this case, sure, maybe they've never run into the issue.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#100

Post by steven777400 »

sbank wrote: post #63
steven777400 wrote: post #33

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

From the top of my head, from someone who currently seeks work as a full stack (Rails) developer: I would ask if you by "method" mean function defined on an object. If so, this refers to the method's object. If not, this can take on 5 values. In the global scope it is the global object; in a constructor it is the newly created object; in a function (not defined on an object - and also goes for functions defined withi…

I did mean "function defined on an object". Your answer would have been way ahead of everyone else because no one else had an answer. :)

I would also add, though, that function definition is not the critical aspect to define this. The value of this primarily varies based on how the function is called, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...

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