JOB INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE

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Contributors

@bentruyman (http://bentruyman.com/), @roger_raymond (http://twitter.com/iansym), @ajpiano (http://ajpiano.com/), @paul_irish (http://paulirish.com/), @SlexAxton (http://alexsexton.com/), @boazsender (http://boazsender.com/), @miketaylr (http://miketaylr.com/), @vladikoff (http://vladfilippov.com/), @gf3 (http://gf3.ca/), @jon_neal (http://twitter.com/jon_neal), @wookiehangover (http://wookiehangover.com/) and @darcy_clarke (http://darcyclarke.me)

General Questions:

• Are you on Twitter?
  • If so, who do you follow on Twitter?
• Are you on GitHub?
  • If so, what are some examples of repos you follow
    
• What blogs do you follow?
• What version control systems have you used?
• What is your preferred development environment? (OS, Editor, Browsers, Tools etc.)
• Can you describe your workflow when you create a web page?
• Can you describe the difference between progressive enhancement and graceful degradation?
  • Bonus points for the answer "no one can"
  • Extra bonus points for describing feature detection
    
• Explain what "Semantic HTML" means.
• What does "minification" do?
• Why is it better to serve site assets from multiple domains?
  • How many resources will a browser download from a given domain at a time?
    
• If you have 8 different stylesheets for a given design, how would you integrate them into the site?
  • Looking for file concatenation.
  • Points off for @import, unless it works in conjunction with a build system.
    
• If you jumped on a project and they used tabs and you used spaces, what would you do?
  • issue :retab! command
• Write a simple slideshow page
  • Bonus points if it does not use JS.
    
• What tools do you use to test your code's performance?
• If you could master one technology this year, what would it be?
• Name 3 ways to decrease page load. (perceived or actual load time)
• Explain the importance of standards.
  

HTML-Specific Questions:

• What's a doctype do, and how many can you name?
• What's the difference between standards mode and quirks mode?
• What are the limitations when serving XHTML pages?
  • Are there any problems with serving pages as application/xhtml+xml?
    
• How do you serve a page with content in multiple languages?
• Can you use XHTML syntax in HTML5? How do you use XML in HTML5?
• What are data- attributes good for?
• What are the content models in HTML4 and are they different in HTML5?
• Consider HTML5 as an open web platform. What are the building blocks of HTML5?
• Describe the difference between cookies, sessionStorage and localStorage.
  

JS-Specific Questions

• Which JavaScript libraries have you used?
• How is JavaScript different from Java?
• What are undefined and undeclared variables?
• What is a closure, and how/why would you use one?
  • Your favorite pattern used to create them? argyle (Only applicable to IIFEs)
    
• What's a typical use case for anonymous functions?
• Explain the "JavaScript module pattern" and when you'd use it.
  • Bonus points for mentioning clean namespacing.
  • What if your modules are namespace-less?
    
• how do you organize your code? (module pattern, classical inheritance?)
• What's the difference between host objects and native objects?
• Difference between: javascript function Person(){} var person = Person() var person = new Person()
• What's the difference between .call and .apply?
• explain Function.prototype.bind?
• When do you optimize your code?
• Can you explain how inheritance works in JavaScript?
  • Bonus points for the funny answer: "no one can"
  • Extra bonus points if they take a stab at explaining it
    
• When would you use document.write()?
  • Correct answer: 1999 - time to weed out the junior devs
    
• What's the difference between feature detection, feature inference, and using the UA string
• Explain AJAX in as much detail as possible
• Explain how JSONP works (and how it's not really AJAX)
• Have you ever used JavaScript templating, and if so, what/how?
• Explain "hoisting".
• What is FOUC? How do you avoid FOUC?
• Describe event bubbling.
• What's the difference between an "attribute" and a "property"?
• Why is extending built in JavaScript objects not a good idea?
• Why is extending built ins a good idea?
• Difference between document load event and document ready event?
• What is the difference between == and ===?
• Explain how you would get a query string parameter from the browser window's URL.
• Explain the same-origin policy with regards to JavaScript.
• Explain event delegation.
• Describe inheritance patterns in JavaScript.
• Make this work: javascript [1,2,3,4,5].duplicator(); // [1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5]
• Describe a strategy for memoization (avoiding calculation repetition) in JavaScript.
• Why is it called a Ternary statement, what does the word "Ternary" indicate?
• What is the arity of a function?
  

JS-Code Examples:

>~~3.14

Question: What value is returned from the above statement? Answer: 3

"i'm a lasagna hog".split("").reverse().join("");

Question: What value is returned from the above statement? Answer: "goh angasal a m'i"

( window.foo || ( window.foo = "bar" ) );

Question: What is the value of window.foo? Answer: "bar" if intially window.foo was false, undefined or zero else it will retain its value.

var foo = "Hello"; (function() { var bar = " World"; alert(foo + bar); })(); alert(foo + bar);

Question: What is the outcome of the two alerts above? Answer: "Hello World" & ReferenceError: bar is not defined

jQuery-Specific Questions:

• Explain "chaining".
• What does .end() do?
• How, and why, would you namespace a bound event handler?
• What is the effects (or fx) queue?
• What is the difference between .get(), [], and .eq()?
• What is the difference between .bind(), .live(), and .delegate()?
• What is the difference between $ and $.fn? Or just what is $.fn.
• Optimize this selector: javascript $(".foo div#bar:eq(0)")

CSS-Specific Questions:

• Describe what a "reset" CSS file does and how it's useful.
• Describe Floats and how they work.
• What are the various clearing techniques and which is appropriate for what context?
• Explain CSS sprites, and how you would implement them on a page or site.
• What are the differences between the IE box model and the W3C box model?
• What are your favourite image replacement techniques and which do you use when?
• CSS property hacks, conditionally included .css files, or... something else?
• How do you serve your pages for feature-constrained browsers?
  • What techniques/processes do you use?
    
• What are the different ways to visually hide content (and make it available only for screen readers)?
• Have you ever used a grid system, and if so, what do you prefer?
• Have you used or implement media queries or mobile specific layouts/CSS?
• Any familiarity with styling SVG?
• How do you optimize your webpages for print?
• What are some of the "gotchas" for writing efficient CSS?
• Do you use CSS preprocessors?
  • If so, describe what you like and dislike about the CSS preprocessors you have used.
• How would you implement a web design comp that uses non-standard fonts? (avoid mentioning webfonts so they can figure it out)
• Explain how a browser determines what elements match a CSS selector?
  

Optional fun Questions:

• What's the coolest thing you've ever coded, what are you most proud of?
• Do you know the HTML5 gang sign?
• Are you now, or have you ever been, on a boat.
• Tell me your favorite parts about Firebug / Webkit Inspector.
• Do you have any pet projects? What kind?
• Explain the significance of "cornify".
• On a piece of paper, write down the letters A B C D E vertically. Now put these in descending order without writing one line of code.
  • Wait and see if they turn the paper upside down
• This should make the laugh and is a fine way to relieve some tension at the end of the interview.
  
• Pirate or Ninja?
  • Bonus if it's a combo and a good reason was given (+2 for zombie monkey pirate ninjas)
• If not Web Development what would you be doing?
• Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? (hint: their answer is always wrong)
• What's your favorite feature of Internet Explorer?
• Complete this sentence: Brendan Eich and Doug Crockford are the __________ of javascript.
• jQuery: a great library or the greatest library? Discuss.