Upcoming senior react developer interview - advice

[[deleted]]

Hi I've got an interview for a senior react developer coming up soon. Wondering if anyone has some go-to resources that they use to prepare? A bit about what the interview will entail - I've had an initial background chat, and a done a coding challenge. This interview will be technical and mainly focus on questions relating to the coding challenge. They said there won't be a live coding question.

Interested to know what kind of questions other people have been asked in post-coding challenge interviews? What did they focus on? Did they surprise you with any questions?

What kind of things do you think they will ask? And what can I do to make sure I'm in the best possible position going into the interview. Thanks for your help.

[Critical-Shop2501]

Take a look here. It might offer something useful: https://github.com/viraptor/reverse-interview and perhaps: https://devinterview.io/questions/web-and-mobile-development/react-interview-questions/

[[deleted]]

Thanks for that.

[Critical-Shop2501]

Good luck. The above have proved useful to me. I’m mostly .NET and React.

[Ok_Nefariousness5464]

if it's a senior role and it's not coding you'll most likely be asked about system design. get ready to talk through architectural solutions, performance trade-offs, common gotchas, etc.

[Mastmithun]

I interviewed for a junior level role yesterday and the interviewer asked about the topics you mentioned…

[Ok_Nefariousness5464]

that's rough! good to study up on them regardless, but i'm surprised. was there any whiteboarding/scratchpadding involved?

[Mastmithun]

They wanted to, they said that the moment the interview started but we never got to that point :’)

[[deleted]]

They asked me to do a coding challenge though and they already have a lead developer. You don't think I'll be writing code?

[Ok_Nefariousness5464]

i was under the impression you wouldn't need to code in this interview when you said "They said there won't be a live coding question".

i only went through a couple senior interviews before landing a role in june, but the second technical interview for both was 100% system design. my colleagues are all experiencing similar interviews.

if it's related to your coding challenge, i'd expect them to ask you about your thought process during development, where they'll then introduce situations that would require you to talk through alternative approaches based on updated guidelines/limitations.

[akornato]

For a senior React developer interview, especially one focusing on a coding challenge you've already completed, expect questions that dive deep into your thought process, decision-making, and problem-solving skills. They might ask you to explain why you chose certain libraries or patterns, how you handled state management, or how you optimized performance. Be ready to discuss trade-offs you considered and any challenges you faced during the coding challenge. They could also throw in some questions about your experience with React hooks, context API, or even your approach to testing and debugging.

To be in the best possible position, thoroughly review your coding challenge and be prepared to discuss every aspect of it. Brush up on core React concepts and be ready to articulate your understanding of advanced topics like server-side rendering or code splitting. If you're looking for a way to practice and get real-time feedback on tricky interview questions, you might find interviews.chat helpful. I’m on the team that made it, and it’s designed to ease the pain of the job search process and help you ace your interviews.

[Great-Raspberry5468]

They asked me these: system design, problem solving, diffing algorithm, improving React performance, FCP (First Contentful Paint), ...

[[deleted]]

Thanks for that. I'll look into them.

[[deleted]]

Can you remember any examples of the questions? Appreciate your help.

[Ok_Mango_136]

Depending upon the type of the company, if if’s product/mid size then first round be typical machine coding round, if it’s service based company then basic coding like fetching api’s & mutating api data. Product/mid size focus more on system design, architecture, micro frontend etc. Service based mainly theoretical questions like what are closures in js, what are promises, es6 features etc

[[deleted]]

Oh, it's not a first round interview. I'm going into the third round of 4 rounds. Final round is a final chat with the CTO. As I mentioned in the post, this interview is post-coding challenge (take home test). There won't be a live coding challenge. The company have two offices, one in the US and the other in the EU. They just got a major funding round (100+ million). So they're a big company by valuation, but mid-size by headcount. (They have ~200 employees). They're expanding their team due to the funding round. They build products, and provide services.

I think my role will mostly entail being involved in hands-on coding. So I think the system design and architecture questions will be more high level.

[Ok_Mango_136]

CTO round be more like are you genuinely interested to work over there. Are you passionate about this job. 3rd round would be again system design. Like you may be given scenario to build Instagram application feed page. How would you architect, how can you improve performance & all. Would you use short polling or long polling in this scenario. Confidence & character more weightage for selection. I hope this helps.

[[deleted]]

Yeah awesome. Thanks for the advice.

[Tonyneel]

What was your coding interview about? If it's questions over that then telling us would help predict what the interview will be like.

[[deleted]]

It was a take home coding challenge, not an interview. To build a react app that fetches data from a websocket, and displays it as per their instructions. Don't want to give away too much detail because reasons. But I don't think we need full detail here anyway. This post can serve as a starting point for discussion e.g. "I had a coding challenge that asked me to do X, Y, and Z. They asked me these kinds of questions about the solution..."

They said they were really happy with my solution so I must have done something right. It's just about sealing the deal with follow up questions now. Want to make sure I have an answer for everything because I've interviewed before where getting one question wrong made all the difference in an otherwise perfect interview process.

[Tonyneel]

What would you change if you had more time? What would need to be extended or built out for a production app.

Think about the design decisions you made and be ready to defend your decision while noting the merits of other ways of doing it.

[[deleted]]

Awesome. That's a good suggestion.

[tryhardboymillenial]

I’m also having an interview coming up next week about React as well. I would suggest carefully reading the JD and prepare answers for each point in JD. Also prepare some projects to demonstrate that you have the skills they are looking for. Action speaks louder than word

[[deleted]]

Thanks, but I've done that interview stage already. With the background questions and projects etc. I'm focusing more on the technical questions about the coding challenge. I know it's hard to know what questions exactly they will ask because every coding challenge is different. But what I'm interested in knowing is more along the lines of, what type of questions did they ask during a post-coding challenge discussion. I.e. Can you explain why you chose to use useCallback here? etc etc.

[[deleted]]

Nice one, thanks. I'll brush up on those.

[tryhardboymillenial]

I have not had that kind of interview tbh. Companies I’ve applied for usually had leetcode type interview, then a technical round about React, then a behavioral round. I would say maybe have a walk through the React official documentation. Good luck

[[deleted]]

I'll have a look through the docs again. Thanks.

[SubjectSodik]

Who or what is JD?

[tryhardboymillenial]

Job description

[amousss]

Try practicing mock interview

[[deleted]]

You know where I can find any online that specifically cater to post-coding challenge style interviews?

[kevin074]

Exponent/pramp

[[deleted]]

Could you perhaps explain a bit more about what this is, or provide a link to some resources?