Front-end developer interview questions [closed]

It depends on the level you are interviewing for. I recently finished up a good round of interviews for frontend positions (and found a good job! ;), here are some of the questions I was asked which I thought stood out (and were more challenging than others).

  • Explain the difference between the JavaScript call and apply functions.

  • Puzzle: Emulate the game "Secret Santa" where there are 3 or more participants, no participant can receive their own gift or receive more than one gift. Do this in JavaScript.

  • Identify two ways in which you can clear a floated element with HTML/CSS.

  • What is the difference between event bubbling and event capture?

  • Describe a rendering problem you had in IE6 or IE7, and how you overcame it.

  • Define the term 'closure' and give an example of it in JavaScript.

  • Explain the differences between the IE and DOM standard event model.

  • What is the proper way to evaluate JSON from the server, and why is this the proper way?


The questions you propose are too easy to bluff on. "Have you worked with javascript libraries? Yes. JQuery." That doesn't tell you much. I suggest turning the questions a little more like this:

  • Describe for me how to write an extension for JQuery.
  • Describe the architecture of JQuery and compare it to YUI
  • What would you change about HTML5/CSS3 if you could?
  • What is your favorite feature in HTML5 and how would you use it?

These get to more of a sense of understanding than mere acknowledgement of facts.

You could simply ask fizz-buzz in Javascript. It couldn't hurt.


I like to ask to "convert" to html a classic paper (ie, journal, magazine, etc.) to a semantically correct markup.

It helps to know if the developer knows about semantics, seo, etc.

Some other questions I like to ask:

  • How to explain DOM.
  • Why and when should you use div ? (ie, not every time, only when insufficient markup or need to wrap several elements)
  • When using IDs, when using classes ?
  • Do you use some naming convention for your ids and classes.

Therefor, I like to ask question that helps to find logical persons, not the one who knows about all functions but have a good analysis. I think you must make a difference between skills and experiences.

and most of the question already listed by other people.


  • What inspires you to create good looking and functional websites?
  • What do you think are the strengths of digital marketing via web and social media?
  • Which areas of web development are you interested in? please range from most interested to least interested. (design, code (HTML, CSS), interactivity (Flash, silverlight, jQuery), usability, SEO etc).
  • Why is it important to write good semantic code, and separate information(HTML) from layout(CSS) and behaviour (javascript)
  • What is a good website for you? feel free to show examples