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Are you ready to tackle your web developer interview? Don’t worry if you don’t feel prepared to crush your interview – we’ll guide you through the basics of interviewing for a web developer job and give you some tips.
Making sure you impress your interviewer is key to landing a web developer job. Whether you’re preparing for your first round interview or this is the last interview you’ll go through before getting an offer, you want to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward. Part of impressing your interviewer is showing that you came prepared and ready to answer their questions.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of web developer interviews and show you some common interview questions. After you read through our guide and practice your responses to the interview questions, you’ll be ready to take on whatever the interview throws your way.
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Before you can even get to the job interview, you’ll need to have a good understanding of what skills are required to be a web developer. You want to make sure that your skill set is a good fit for whatever job in web development you’re applying to, and that you emphasize those crucial skills in your interview.
Here are a few of the top responsibilities that web developers have and the skills you’ll need to perform them:
Designing and testing applications
Writing code
Maintaining websites
Understanding and fixing website issues
Monitoring website traffic
Enhancing websites
Creating plans for website crashes
Current knowledge of technology and industry best practices
Coding language knowledge (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP, and others)
SEO
Project management skills
Now it’s time to take a look at some of the most common questions that you’ll get in a web developer job interview.
We’ll give you some example answers too so you know how you should approach your answer, but you definitely want to answer the question however it feels best to you.
Can you tell me about a project you worked on from beginning to end? How did you approach the project? What did you find challenging? How did you determine success?
“I oversaw the creation of a website for a client, which included everything from creating a sitemap to presenting and troubleshooting the final product. Our biggest challenge was getting everyone on the same page and following through on deadlines.”
“Since I managed 4 developers with different expertise, it was hard to delegate tasks to them and get them to communicate about their deadlines. Once we started using a project management platform, it became much easier to communicate and keep everyone in the loop.”
Can you explain the difference between front-end and back-end development?
“Front-end development covers all of the user-facing parts of a website or app. It’s the functionality and appearance of the site, but the back-end is all about the systems in place and the technical set up.”
How would you rank your presentation skills?
“I have been responsible for sharing projects with clients and presenting our final product to them, so I am comfortable with sharing my work. I am confident while presenting and I feel like I’m able to field questions and answers with ease.”
Can you tell me about a project you worked on that didn’t go well?
“One of my first app design projects was for a picky client who always changed what they wanted. I would show them a version of the app, then they would ask to change the color or the layout of each page.”
“Eventually their requests became too much to handle, so I told them that the team would only allow 2 rounds of feedback on each part of the app. This meant that the client could only request changes once, then give feedback on those changes. It made the project run much more smoothly.”
Can you tell me about a website or an app that you hate using?
“One site that I don’t like is LinkedIn. I find that it takes forever to load, the information that I actually want is never easy to find, and the layout isn’t intuitive for me as a user.”
Imagine an app you’re working on stops functioning. What would your first step be?
“I would double check with my team to make sure the app isn’t working for everyone, then try to find out what the latest changes to the app were. If I can’t learn anything from that, I’d let my supervisor know and see if they have any insight on how to fix it.”
What languages are you familiar with?
“I’ve mostly worked with C++, JavaScript, and Python, but I do have some experience with HTML.”
What skills are you most interested in developing in this position?
“I’d like to focus on improving my full-stack development skills. I feel like I have a good understanding of front-end development, and a fluency in back-end development, but I’d like to bridge those two more and get better at managing all parts of development.”
What made you interested in web development?
“I constantly found myself looking at websites and apps critically. I’d be confused when site layouts weren’t intuitive, or the site had really great info and really horrible design.”
“I wanted to improve the sites I used and saw, so I started looking into what makes a good website and I just dove into the topic. When I got to college, I saw all the amazing things you could do with web development and thought that it was the most interesting career path for me.”
Have you ever had to respond to negative feedback?
“Yes, at the beginning of my career I ran into some issues with my time management and eventually my supervisor at the time had to give me a warning. While I was initially upset about the criticism, I realized that I had been returning projects late and disappointing clients.”
“My supervisor was very helpful and together we made a plan to help me improve my organization, which has helped me manage my time better now.”
How do you make sure that your development projects provide useful user experiences?
“I like to keep up to date with industry trends and read the latest research on optimizing websites. I find that using that research and data helps me optimize my sites when I test out different methods they suggest with A/B tests.”
Can you tell me about a project that you enjoyed working on?
“I think one of my favorite projects was a website I developed for an animal shelter near my house. They had a very outdated website that made it hard to get information about donating or adopting an animal.”
“Working on their site and redoing it allowed me to support an organization I loved while learning to work with their limited budget. At the end, I was proud of the site I put together with my team and found it to be much more user friendly than when we started.”
Do you have any projects that you work on in your free time?
“Yes, I have a friend who runs a small music blog and I spend time on the weekends helping him make his site more user friendly and customized to his needs. It allows me to try new techniques and trends in a low stakes environment while working on a project that I consider a hobby since I love discovering new music.”
What’s a trend in web development that you’re expecting to see this year?
“I’m excited to see what happens with artificial intelligence and machine learning. I’ve noticed more integrations with AI and ML, so I’m excited to work with it and see what opportunities arrive with the new technology.”
Do you stay up to date with industry trends? How do you learn about the latest trends?
“I follow a few industry experts on LinkedIn and subscribe to a few newsletters. I like to check in on blogs like Developer Drive and Code Newbie too.”
How do you like to communicate with your manager?
“I like a more hands-off approach. I like to check in with managers and team mates at least once a day with an email or quick message, but schedule weekly check-in meetings to talk about ongoing projects. I prefer to schedule meetings as needed instead of having more meetings scheduled than I need to attend.”
What do you think your strongest soft skills are?
“I think that I’m good at communication, both with coworkers or people on the company side as well as with external clients. I like to set clear expectations and communicate what I will deliver. I’m also good at staying organized and on track with my projects so I can deliver on my promises.”
What about this job description or our company excites you the most?
“I like that this is a full-stack position on a team of developers with niche expertise. I feel like I can bring a good portion of back-end and front-end development knowledge to the team, but I’m excited to learn from my colleagues and understand their niche.”
“I think that the collaborative environment that you described will help me dive in and act like a sponge to absorb expertise from colleagues.”
What projects do you like to work on the most?
“Since my interest in web development began with user experience and design, I still like the front-end projects more than others. I like making a site functional and aesthetically pleasing, so any projects where I can improve sites or apps I’m happy to take on.”
Do you have any reservations about your ability to do this job well?
“While my jobs in the past have been as a full-stack developer, I still feel that I could improve my back-end development skills. I’m able to take on projects, but I still need some help or time to research on my own to tackle difficult back-end projects.”
Are you ready to tackle your web developer interview? Don’t worry if you don’t feel prepared to crush your interview – we’ll guide you through the basics of interviewing for a web developer job and give you some tips.
Making sure you impress your interviewer is key to landing a web developer job. Whether you’re preparing for your first round interview or this is the last interview you’ll go through before getting an offer, you want to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward. Part of impressing your interviewer is showing that you came prepared and ready to answer their questions.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of web developer interviews and show you some common interview questions. After you read through our guide and practice your responses to the interview questions, you’ll be ready to take on whatever the interview throws your way.
Before you can even get to the job interview, you’ll need to have a good understanding of what skills are required to be a web developer. You want to make sure that your skill set is a good fit for whatever job in web development you’re applying to, and that you emphasize those crucial skills in your interview.
Here are a few of the top responsibilities that web developers have and the skills you’ll need to perform them:
Designing and testing applications
Writing code
Maintaining websites
Understanding and fixing website issues
Monitoring website traffic
Enhancing websites
Creating plans for website crashes
Current knowledge of technology and industry best practices
Coding language knowledge (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP, and others)
SEO
Project management skills
Now it’s time to take a look at some of the most common questions that you’ll get in a web developer job interview.
We’ll give you some example answers too so you know how you should approach your answer, but you definitely want to answer the question however it feels best to you.
Can you tell me about a project you worked on from beginning to end? How did you approach the project? What did you find challenging? How did you determine success?
“I oversaw the creation of a website for a client, which included everything from creating a sitemap to presenting and troubleshooting the final product. Our biggest challenge was getting everyone on the same page and following through on deadlines.”
“Since I managed 4 developers with different expertise, it was hard to delegate tasks to them and get them to communicate about their deadlines. Once we started using a project management platform, it became much easier to communicate and keep everyone in the loop.”
Can you explain the difference between front-end and back-end development?
“Front-end development covers all of the user-facing parts of a website or app. It’s the functionality and appearance of the site, but the back-end is all about the systems in place and the technical set up.”
How would you rank your presentation skills?
“I have been responsible for sharing projects with clients and presenting our final product to them, so I am comfortable with sharing my work. I am confident while presenting and I feel like I’m able to field questions and answers with ease.”
Can you tell me about a project you worked on that didn’t go well?
“One of my first app design projects was for a picky client who always changed what they wanted. I would show them a version of the app, then they would ask to change the color or the layout of each page.”
“Eventually their requests became too much to handle, so I told them that the team would only allow 2 rounds of feedback on each part of the app. This meant that the client could only request changes once, then give feedback on those changes. It made the project run much more smoothly.”
Can you tell me about a website or an app that you hate using?
“One site that I don’t like is LinkedIn. I find that it takes forever to load, the information that I actually want is never easy to find, and the layout isn’t intuitive for me as a user.”
Imagine an app you’re working on stops functioning. What would your first step be?
“I would double check with my team to make sure the app isn’t working for everyone, then try to find out what the latest changes to the app were. If I can’t learn anything from that, I’d let my supervisor know and see if they have any insight on how to fix it.”
What languages are you familiar with?
“I’ve mostly worked with C++, JavaScript, and Python, but I do have some experience with HTML.”
What skills are you most interested in developing in this position?
“I’d like to focus on improving my full-stack development skills. I feel like I have a good understanding of front-end development, and a fluency in back-end development, but I’d like to bridge those two more and get better at managing all parts of development.”
What made you interested in web development?
“I constantly found myself looking at websites and apps critically. I’d be confused when site layouts weren’t intuitive, or the site had really great info and really horrible design.”
“I wanted to improve the sites I used and saw, so I started looking into what makes a good website and I just dove into the topic. When I got to college, I saw all the amazing things you could do with web development and thought that it was the most interesting career path for me.”
Have you ever had to respond to negative feedback?
“Yes, at the beginning of my career I ran into some issues with my time management and eventually my supervisor at the time had to give me a warning. While I was initially upset about the criticism, I realized that I had been returning projects late and disappointing clients.”
“My supervisor was very helpful and together we made a plan to help me improve my organization, which has helped me manage my time better now.”
How do you make sure that your development projects provide useful user experiences?
“I like to keep up to date with industry trends and read the latest research on optimizing websites. I find that using that research and data helps me optimize my sites when I test out different methods they suggest with A/B tests.”
Can you tell me about a project that you enjoyed working on?
“I think one of my favorite projects was a website I developed for an animal shelter near my house. They had a very outdated website that made it hard to get information about donating or adopting an animal.”
“Working on their site and redoing it allowed me to support an organization I loved while learning to work with their limited budget. At the end, I was proud of the site I put together with my team and found it to be much more user friendly than when we started.”
Do you have any projects that you work on in your free time?
“Yes, I have a friend who runs a small music blog and I spend time on the weekends helping him make his site more user friendly and customized to his needs. It allows me to try new techniques and trends in a low stakes environment while working on a project that I consider a hobby since I love discovering new music.”
What’s a trend in web development that you’re expecting to see this year?
“I’m excited to see what happens with artificial intelligence and machine learning. I’ve noticed more integrations with AI and ML, so I’m excited to work with it and see what opportunities arrive with the new technology.”
Do you stay up to date with industry trends? How do you learn about the latest trends?
“I follow a few industry experts on LinkedIn and subscribe to a few newsletters. I like to check in on blogs like Developer Drive and Code Newbie too.”
How do you like to communicate with your manager?
“I like a more hands-off approach. I like to check in with managers and team mates at least once a day with an email or quick message, but schedule weekly check-in meetings to talk about ongoing projects. I prefer to schedule meetings as needed instead of having more meetings scheduled than I need to attend.”
What do you think your strongest soft skills are?
“I think that I’m good at communication, both with coworkers or people on the company side as well as with external clients. I like to set clear expectations and communicate what I will deliver. I’m also good at staying organized and on track with my projects so I can deliver on my promises.”
What about this job description or our company excites you the most?
“I like that this is a full-stack position on a team of developers with niche expertise. I feel like I can bring a good portion of back-end and front-end development knowledge to the team, but I’m excited to learn from my colleagues and understand their niche.”
“I think that the collaborative environment that you described will help me dive in and act like a sponge to absorb expertise from colleagues.”
What projects do you like to work on the most?
“Since my interest in web development began with user experience and design, I still like the front-end projects more than others. I like making a site functional and aesthetically pleasing, so any projects where I can improve sites or apps I’m happy to take on.”
Do you have any reservations about your ability to do this job well?
“While my jobs in the past have been as a full-stack developer, I still feel that I could improve my back-end development skills. I’m able to take on projects, but I still need some help or time to research on my own to tackle difficult back-end projects.”