How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
codemonkeyism.com
How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
1–10 of 29 posts
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#2That looks like a very poor checklist unless you're purely looking for someone that rapidly turns templates into markup.
Otherwise, a grasp of how the users will interact with your app and what constraints that imposes on the front end is far more important than their ability to regurgitate CSS clearfix syntax and knowledge of server side javascript frameworks they might not have to learn.
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#3[deleted]
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#4For a user experience designer I would have a different interview.
What's important for me is to see if some understand what is happening behind the scenes. There are so many people who apply a clearfix but do not understand the principles of block contexts.
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#5I don't think so. First of all, a Frontend Hero needs to have design sense, ability to learn quickly, empathy with users, trustworthiness to "fill in the blanks", and the balls to say no to designs or features that are unnecessary, impractical, and time-consuming. What Sebastian Deutsch described is a CSS / Javascript quirks specialist.
Additionally, the article never really touched on how to recruit these people - it just lists screening questions to ask during an interview. To recruit a Frontend Hero, you need to hire great designers and create a culture that treats front end engineers as first class citizens.
Incidentally, we're doing that at Airbnb right now. http://www.airbnb.com/jobs/show/8
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#6@euroclydon oh yes minifying, I gonna add that to the list good point.
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#7To me this looks like an endless series of 'gotcha' questions that for the most part are either in the totally obvious or terribly obscure category.
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#8I don't think so. First of all, a Frontend Hero needs to have design sense, ability to learn quickly, empathy with users, trustworthiness to "fill in the blanks", and the balls to say no to designs or features that are unnecessary, impractical, and time-consuming. What Sebastian Deutsch described is a CSS / Javascript quirks specialist. Additionally, the article never really touched on how to recruit these people - i…
Absolutely. Frontend is far more about design and usability than it is about whether or not you can remember vendor-specific hacks for CSS columns.
I figure if I ever need to hire a "frontend hero" my checklist will be very short. Do you have a sizable portfolio, and does your stuff look like the stuff I want? If so, you're in the running.
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#9... wow, I haven't been paying close attention to the web development community. CSS frameworks are really considered an essential building block now?
Re: How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
#10Someone who understands normal flow and positioning, how elements interact with each other, and minimizes the amount of code for each part of the design will be much more effective than someone who knows all the short cut css hacks.
Also, a bunch of these questions were far more relevant during the IE6 era which is now finally at a decline. I would care that someone knows how to code for IE6, but that requires one question since all IE6 bugs are very well documented, just make sure the person is aware.