We asked Marat Zimnurov, Lead Front End Engineer at EPAM Anywhere and practicing technical interviewer, to share his take on the most common front end developer interview questions.
The front end role has a significant impact on the end product. That’s why it is crucial for interviewers to ask questions that will determine whether the candidate is a good fit for the project. And for interviewees, it is essential to showcase the experience and knowledge they gained from their previous projects.
This task is easier if you learn what the most popular questions are before applying for remote front end developer jobs.
Usually, the interviewer will give you 3–5 minutes to talk about yourself, so it is important to speak briefly and clearly, without going into unnecessary detail. The best self-presentation includes:
With modern web apps, front end development is much more than just building user interfaces; it’s also about implementing HTML5 technologies. Without a solid understanding of asynchronous JavaScript in particular, or pure JavaScript in general, you will have trouble understanding some powerful HTML5 APIs like Web Workers, WebSocket, WebRTC, and IndexedDB.
More importantly, engineers with poor knowledge of JavaScript often write unmaintainable code. So while preparing for the front end developer interview, ensure you know the answers to the questions below.
Sample questions:
ECMAScript is the official name of the language standardized by ECMA (the European Computer Manufacturers Association), which is the body that outlines the language specification. This is the standard every browser vendor should adhere to in order to make their browser's JavaScript engines compatible.
Make sure you know the differences between arrow functions and traditional functions. Also, the interviewer may ask different questions about ECMAScript modules and classes.
Sample questions:
TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that contains a single open-source compiler. It is mainly developed by a single vendor — Microsoft. TypeScript aims to help catch mistakes through type systems quickly and make JavaScript development more efficient.
Before the interview, make sure you know what typing is for, and understand TypeScript generics and data structures. These questions are common in interviews for front end developers of all levels — from junior to senior.
Sample questions:
Software engineers should know basic SQL. You don't need to know about optimization, performance, database setup, or other complicated areas, but you should be able to write an SQL query.
It is essential to know at least the basic SELECT, INSERT, DELETE and UPDATE functions and understand relational databases. That’s why all front end developer interviews should include at least one question regarding that.
Sample questions:
As for Node.js, it is enough to know how to run a simple “Hello, world” server. Also, ensure you understand how REST API works. It is crucial for front end developers to have basic REST API knowledge because a stateless solution is rare.
Sample question:
For a front end developer, it is enough to know why a virtualization service (i.e., Docker) is needed and how to run your front end or Node.js application, or simply enable the service for the database through Docker Compose. The questions usually cover only a basic familiarity.
Sample question:
Bash, ZSH, OhMyZSH, or just Shell — all are suitable here. The idea is that you have to navigate it and understand the specifics of your OS. You should be able to connect to a container without GUI, terminate the process or open a port, use the CLI database, work with Git, update packages, or at least be able to copy-paste and run the revert commit command from StackOverflow.
A component of software configuration management, version control, also known as revision control or source control, is the management of changes to documents, computer programs, large websites, and other collections of information. Every engineer should know how Git works and what the basic commands are.
Sample questions:
Engineers need to understand the software development life cycle to create high-quality software. It not only ensures that software has been tested and perfected but also that costs and production have been lowered for successful implementation. This topic is especially important for senior developer interviews.
Sample questions:
Task management is an essential component of effective project management and successful business operations. It’s important to have experience working with task trackers and to understand their impact on your projects. During the interview, feel free to describe Jira, Trello, YouTrack, GitHub, or any other to-do tool.
Sample question:
Engineers should know basic task evaluation terms to be on the same page as other team members. The interviewer may ask about your experience with task evaluation and whether you understand the most basic terms.
Sample questions:
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a fundamental programming paradigm that every front end developer should know. In your interview, get ready to answer the following questions.
Sample questions:
It is important to learn functional programming concepts and train your mind to use those constructs while solving a problem. Functional programming teaches you to think about relationships between data rather than a set of instructions. Answer these questions during the interview to show that you understand basic functional programming concepts.
Sample questions:
Frameworks provide a structure in which software engineers can build programs for a specific platform. Frameworks are needed when code for an application or program seems to have zero structure and rough functionality, because as frameworks, they mandate how your code is structured and how it will run. That’s why interviewers often mention frameworks in senior front end developer interview questions.
Sample questions:
As front end developers, our job is to turn designs into reality via code. Understanding and being competent in styling is an important component of that. As for styling, the most common front end developer interview questions are about CSS, UI frameworks, and preprocessors.
Sample questions:
Some developers tend to skip testing and just throw the code “over the wall” to QA testers and wait for them to report issues. This creates a bottleneck in the process, and teams become slow.
It takes a lot of time to go back and forth, deliver a feature, test, report a bug, fix it, test again, and repeat. That’s why interviewers commonly mention basic testing concepts in front end developer technical interview questions.
Samples questions:
Hopefully, you’ve found these interview tips helpful. Make sure to prepare yourself well when it comes to technologies that are your strongest suit.
You don’t have to be good at everything, though. During a typical interview, you will also be asked to solve some practical cases, so just learning definitions by heart is not a good idea. Familiarize yourself with front end interview questions, but think of them as nothing more than a guideline.
Good luck with your interview!