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 enviroment? (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:
    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: 
    [1,2,3,4,5].duplicator(); // [1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5]
  • Describe a strategy for memoization 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”

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:
    $(".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 screenreaders)?
  • Have you ever used a grid system, and if so, what do you prefer?
  • Hav 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 LESS?
  • 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?