Web Developer Interview Questions: What to Ask and Expect
This article will provide you with the fundamental information you need to know, some essential questions to ask, and detailed answers from experienced web developers.
This article will provide you with the fundamental information you need to know, some essential questions to ask, and detailed answers from experienced web developers.
The proliferation of internet use in businesses and households has resulted in a dramatic increase in the demand for web development. As businesses continue to move their operations online, looking to develop a strong web presence, this has naturally led to an increase in demand for web developers who are able to create and maintain websites that are both functional and visually appealing.
Hiring trends have followed suit, with the number of job postings for web developers consistently growing. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), for instance, expects 19,000 more jobs in the sector by 2029. That’s an 8% growth rate — easily surpassing the 4% to 5% overall job growth rate in the U.S. To corroborate the BLS's findings, a LinkedIn report noted that the web developer role can expect to see 40% more job postings in the near future, and Hackernoon expects 853,000 web developer postings by 2024 — up from 135,000 in 2019.
Salaries have also risen, with the average annual salary for a web developer now easily exceeding $60,000. These job growth and salary prospects are continuously attracting new talent into the sector at an increasingly faster clip, but supply still can’t meet worldwide demand. Hence, there’s no shortage of competitors looking to dip their toes into the same talent pool you’re after.
This article will provide you with the fundamental information you need to know, some essential questions to ask, and detailed answers from experienced web developers. By the end of the article, you should have a solid grasp of the basics to make better-informed decisions when designing your interview process.
Before going any further, it’s paramount to be absolutely clear about the roles and responsibilities of the position for which you’re hiring. Experienced developers are often frustrated by recruiters who simply reach out to them due to their profiles on LinkedIn matching certain keywords without understanding if it’s genuinely a good match at all. This is a good way to waste everyone’s time and plant seeds of distrust between tech recruiters and developers.
You should be crystal clear with a subject matter expert (SME) or your web development team lead regarding what you need, but below is an abridged, foolproof version.
Web development, simply put, is the process of building and maintaining websites and web applications. Web design, web programming, web publishing, and database management — you name it, they're all part and parcel of the web development process. The end goal, of course, is to create (and maintain) websites or web apps that look great and run smoothly both in terms of performance and user experience. The role of a web developer often encompasses this entire pipeline, though it can also be more specialized.
Therefore, web developers must have a good understanding of different types of web technologies and programming languages depending on the tasks they are performing and the platform they are using, including:
Back-end web development refers to the server-side development of a website. This type of development is responsible for the functionality of a website and how it works. It is also responsible for the security and performance of a website. Front-end web development, on the other hand, refers to the client-side development of a website. This type of development is responsible for the design and layout of a website.
Larger websites and web apps typically have separate teams for both ends, while for smaller-scale operations it wouldn’t be uncommon for them to hire full-stack web developers — devs who can work on both ends sufficiently well for their purposes.
Before interviewing, it's essential to create a compelling web developer job description that clearly states the type of developer you need, along with the required skills, experience, and expected responsibilities.
One of the key principles of recruitment and hiring is asking the right questions during the interview process. This is critical regardless of the position or role. There are some general best practices when it comes to web developer interview questions, of course.
Many of these questions will be generic or basic to some degree, particularly geared towards web developers aiming for junior or entry-level positions. Let’s take a look at some more specific examples to get you started:
It's crucial to gauge their experience with coding languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Of course, you should ask for specifically what you need. Ask questions geared around the specific coding languages and frameworks you need for your project to determine if the developer you're considering has enough experience and would be a good fit.
You should also inquire about their experience level when it comes to using various content management systems (CMS). Another important question revolves around front-end versus back-end development. Specifically, whether they are more comfortable coding for design purposes or handling server-side logic. Developers typically specialize in either back-end development or front-end development (or both). Your organization may have a distinct delineation between the two, but smaller, leaner teams may want to hire web developers who can juggle both.
Ask to see previous work or gain input on their contributions to past projects. Working on known projects is not a must but it helps give insight into the quality of work that can be expected from the potential hire. It also lets you assess how they might fit into your team if they have already had experience working with other developers on large-scale projects.
Having solid problem-solving skills is key to being an effective web developer. After all, being a good developer means being able to identify and solve complex issues quickly and effectively.
This is one of the most important questions you can ask. Potential hires should be able to explain how they stay current on advancements within the industry. Technology is always changing at a rapid pace, so it’s crucial that your developers are keeping up with the latest trends.
Definitely make sure to focus on soft skills. Since web development can be a very collaborative process, it's important to find someone who communicates well and is open to working with other team members.
Now, onto the specifics: there is a multitude of specific questions you can ask entry-level or junior web developers to ascertain skill and culture fit. In the section below, you’ll find some of the most common questions, and also an explanation why they should almost always be included.
Note that there may be distinctions you want to hear specifically for the role (e.g. back end versus front end), but generally, you want to hear what they think in general and how they think this specific role’s responsibilities will look like. In doing so, you will also gain an understanding of their overall grasp of the roles required in the position and their general understanding of web development in general.
Of course, ask about technologies, programming languages, and skills that apply to the actual position. Potential hires should be able to give examples and explain their reasoning.
Ask this question for the same reasons as the one above, but also to gain a clearer picture of the candidate’s understanding of the specific requirements of the role for which you’re hiring.
At a minimum, what you want to ascertain are demonstrated skills and experience in:
In light of this, some developer interview questions to ask would include:
You get the idea: simple, factoid questions relevant to the role, questions that can reveal how much they know of current iterations of relevant technology, and questions that would trip up candidates that are posing with more experience than they actually have.
A caveat here is that sometimes, despite how simple some questions are, candidates might be stumped. Ask your SME/web dev team lead which questions candidates have some wiggle room for, because they, of all people, can tell you that sometimes dev work is all about who can refresh their memories via Google or Stack Overflow the best.
As an extra, you can also ask things like:
You aren’t really looking for right or wrong answers with these. Rather, your goal is to get some insight into how they think.
First and foremost, know that coding challenges are the bane of developers when they’re not a good fit for their experience or the role they’re applying for, so be sure to deploy them tactfully. That said, there are some simple coding challenges you can ask face-to-face — all you need is to put a laptop in front of your candidate.
Open your company home page for them to fiddle with and ask away. Of course, make sure the coding of your home page (or wherever webpage you show them) actually has what you’re asking. Some sample questions:
If you really want a full coding challenge, you can design one from scratch or go for multiple providers who have packaged coding challenges ready for your needs.
Some key questions apply to all roles, as mentioned earlier. These questions often involve digging deeper into relevant experience and personal insights. There are also soft skills questions, which when applied to a web developer interview are framed from the perspective of a team working on a website or web app.
Questions like this are key to understanding their professional preferences. Do their answers show them to be more individualistic or collaborative? Technical or creative?
Of course, you’ll need a checklist or some input from your SME or web dev team lead to interpret their answers properly if you're not so technically inclined.
Additional questions surrounding professional preferences can reveal some insights regarding culture fit. It’s pretty similar to questions you might ask in other roles, only they're framed for the specific job specs of a web developer.
This question allows the interviewee to go into detail about their role in a particular project as well as what technologies were used and what challenges were faced during its development process. It also gives an idea as to whether they prefer collaboration or working independently.
If the candidate explores anecdotes displaying technical skill, take note, but also try to steer it towards the soft skills and collaboration angle:
Of course, this same question can also be framed in a way that allows you to better understand their technical prowess, and it’s indeed recommended to do so. Try designing your interview process to revolve around one or two questions of this make, and spread out your angles of approach to cover both skill fit and culture fit follow-up questions.
This question helps ascertain whether they have read and understood the job posting, which shows initiative and care beyond simply getting any old job.
That does it for entry-level or junior web developers. Those questions can become completely incompatible when hiring senior web developers, so you’ll have to rely on a different set:
This question determines if their mindset matches the profile you’re looking for. Good candidates will answer in a way that matches their current skill sets to those required in your job listing, adding a bit of information on why that’s important.
Essentially, figure out how intrinsically committed a candidate is to this career path because it’s always easy to go with extrinsic factors like career paths provided by outside influences, like employers. Additionally, this question addresses whether they can keep up with the company’s changing needs as technologies advance. Ideally, candidates show they're dedicated to updating their skills through reliable means.
Give candidates the opportunity to share what is essentially generic knowledge from their perspective and based on their own experience. If they provide the “general knowledge” sort of answer, push them to explain how they would frame it from their point of view. This question also shows you their experience handling the nuances of the relationship between both ends.
Answers to this question reflect strategic prioritization and decision-making. Push for examples from previous projects and ask for detailed explanations and justifications, making sure to see if you can identify — or indeed, if they can make it clear — what strategies or processes they rely on.
This is a process question where you’re not necessarily trying to get a specific answer that fits your current needs — though that would be great — rather you want to get a concrete idea of a candidate’s technical problem-solving skills. Use what-if follow-up questions for more detail.
Either/or, depending on your needs: answers to this question reflect creativity and problem-solving skills that fall a bit outside of technical prowess and take quite a bit from previous experience. Of course, replace “specific requirements” with actual project specs, and “specific target audiences” with actual people, like “younger demographics.”
Answers to this question reflect not only how a senior web developer would approach challenges beyond what they’re equipped to handle at the moment, but also how they would deal with clients and develop strategies towards such issues.
This question seeks to affirm how candidates approach the management of client expectations and communication. You can use variations of this question, such as adding for example that the deliverable was exactly on-spec and the client was actually at fault for not understanding what they asked for.
This seems like a question that may also apply to lower-level devs, but the context matters. Pay close attention to how candidates answer this based on their own experience and how they explain or justify their answer and you can gain some insight if they’re a good manager or leader.
This is a very specifically framed version of “Can you tell me about a time when there was a conflict in your previous team and you approached it?” That question is also pretty good, but there are times when the answers candidates come up with are a little too unimpressive by no fault of their own, i.e. the conflict was easily resolved or it was so easy to fix that you gain no insight into the candidate’s qualities.
Pushing a theoretical situation that’s pretty dire makes candidates dig deep into their previous history, regardless of how grave their past conflicts were, and work out a multifaceted solution because the situation you provided is complex.
Notice the pattern yet? Designing interview processes for senior web developers means digging deep into a few key areas:
Your questions need to ascertain how well they fare in these facets. Feel free to ask your SME or web dev team lead how to put a more technical spin or frame on your questions, to make them double-edged and also get a deeper understanding of a candidate’s technical prowess. By and large, however, a technical skills test combined with a verified portfolio of previous projects can already give you a good skills fit assessment.
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