Skip to content

Top 60 web development software specialist interview questions

Published: Last updated:
Web Developer: software engineer interview questions

The days of Web Development being pretty HTML mockups are long gone. Today’s Web Development is excruciatingly demanding in technical terms and there is a growing demand for a web development software specialist. According to Quora and Gooroo.io, for knowledge of Javascript (the main language for frontend development) companies could dash out up to 188k salary average.

For a recruiter or hiring manager looking for a web development software specialist, the task of finding one is potentially an expensive hire. Some serious research is due here, both in terms of sourcing and screening the candidates as hiring the wrong person could potentially be extremely costly.

One of the best ways to ensure you maximize the chance of hiring the right person is tailoring the interview process to best fit the position you are looking to fill. To fully utilize this short time aimed at determining if the candidate is the right fit for the job, great care is taken to find the right questions.

So if you are looking to hire a web development software specialist, what should you pay attention to?

Top 60 web development software specialist interview questions

The science behind good interviews goes far into psychological and sociological analysis and there is hardly any evidence showing that a single method is conclusively proven to give consistent results. Traditionally recruiters use a combination of various techniques to get the most out of the interview process. The very basics of an interview’s structure are covered by Inc.com’s guide on how to conduct an interview, which also has great general tips for good interviewing.

According to Inc.com, a good interview should comprise:

  • Fact-based or general questions
  • Situational or hypothetical questions
  • Stress questions
  • Behavioral questions (we’ve covered behavioral questions in great detail before, so in this article, we’ll focus on questions in other areas.)

For a web development software specialist, remember to test for:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript and its dependencies
  • A few other possible technologies

Testing thoroughly and efficiently is the key to making sure you are hiring the best web development software specialist for your business. Always think of testing them practically.

They are hired for a job to do, and think of what they will have available to them on their first day at work: don’t take away their tools or put them in a dark room expecting them to come up with a miracle.

Offer them the 1st day at work experience to determine their overall skill level. And give yourself the time to focus on all the other aspects of the interview process.

It is still important to get a feel for how a person thinks of problem-solving, work ethics, and culture fit. To be sure, you want to cover all bases. Some of the questions below might help you get a good feel of the person’s character, their thought process, and whether or not they are a fit for the role and environment.

Top 60 web development interview questions

General web development interview questions

  1. Have you recently learned something new or interesting?
  2. What made you interested in programming?
  3. In which programming environment do you feel most comfortable?
  4. What is the piece of code you are most proud of? Are you working on any personal projects at the moment?
  5. What industry sites and blogs do you read regularly?
  6. Do you prefer working alone or on a team?
  7. What sized websites have you worked on before?
  8. From a web software developer’s perspective, what sites do you admire and why?
  9. What’s your favorite development language and why? What other features (if any) do you wish you could add to this language?
  10. Do you find any particular languages or technologies intimidating?

Fact-based web development interview questions

  1. What is the difference between tags and HTML elements?
  2. What is “Semantic HTML”?
  3. How do you optimize a website’s assets?
  4. What are three ways to reduce page load time?
  5. What kind of things must you be wary of when design or developing for multilingual sites?
  6. What does DOCTYPE mean?
  7. What’s the difference between standards mode and quirks mode?
  8. What are the limitations when serving XHTML pages?
  9. What is the syntax difference between a bulleted list and numbered list?
  10. How do you make comments without text being picked up by the browser?
  11. What is the differance between linking to an image, a website, and an email address?
  12. What is the difference between <div> and <frame>?
  13. What is the difference between the page model of HTML and HTML5?
  14. Ok, what’s the real difference between HTML and HTML5?
  15. What are some of the major new API’s that come standard with HTML5?
  16. What is the difference in caching between HTML5 and the old HTML?
  17. What is the new DOCTYPE?
  18. What are some new HTML5 markup elements?
  19. What elements have disappeared?
  20. What are the new media-related elements in HTML5?
  21. What are the new image elements in HTML5?
  22. What is the difference between SVG and <Canvas>?
  23. What are some new input attributes in HTML5?
  24. What are data- attributes good for?
  25. What purpose do Work Workers serve and what are some of their benefits?
  26. Describe the difference between cookies, sessionStorage, and localStorage.
  27. How do you optimize your web pages for print?
  28. What existing CSS frameworks have you used locally, or in production? How would you change/improve them?
  29. How is responsive design different from adaptive design?
  30. Explain how a browser determines what elements match a CSS selector.
  31. What is the difference between classes and IDs in CSS?
  32. What’s the difference between “resetting” and “normalizing” CSS? Which would you choose, and why?
  33. Explain Ajax in as much detail as possible.
  34. What’s the difference between .call and .apply?
  35. What’s the difference between an “attribute” and a “property”?
  36. Why is extending built-in JavaScript objects not a good idea?
  37. Is jQuery is a replacement of JavaScript?
  38. What are the advantages of jQuery?
  39. Which is the fastest selector in jQuery? Which is the slowest?
  40. Where jQuery code is getting executed?

Situational or hypothetical web development interview questions

  1. I just pulled up the website you built and the browser is displaying a blank page. Walk me through the steps you’d take to troubleshoot the problem.
  2.  The website is not rendering correctly on different devices. What are the first steps you would take to correct that?
  3. We’re developing a Shopify product review app for a small store. Give me a list of requirements and a time-frame for delivering the entire project.
  4. A project needs to be deployed in one month but the code, written a previous developer, is messy and not functional. Do you re-write or start from scratch? Why and what does it depend on?
  5. We have a need to use a technology you are not familiar with. Would you begin learning it or outsource/ask for outside help?

Stress web development interview questions

  1. Could you repeat your answer? I felt that it was not complete.
  2. Why were you fired from your last job?
  3. If you and your boss had a disagreement, how would you handle it?
  4. What would you do if someone falsely got credit for your work?
  5. If one of your co-workers or team members was slacking off and delaying the work of the team, how would you deal with it?

Behavioral questions

We’ve previously covered behavioral questions in great detail in 45 sample questions to use during non-technical interview with developers. For a quick overview of different types of these questions make sure you consider:

  • Action-oriented / self-motivation
  • Ability to adapt
  • Goal orientation
  • Influence/persuasion
  • Planning, priority setting, time management
  • Problem-solving skills
  • Conflict management
  • Creativity
  • Decision making
  • Teamwork
  • Working under pressure

All of which are covered by great examples here.

For more proven examples of good questions to ask in an interview, check out our The definitive book of developer interview questions for savvy recruiters

For practical web development interview questions, check out a sample CSS section of our coding tests:

TypeScript
JUNIOR
Tested skills
Duration
51 minutes max.
Evaluation
Automatic
Test overview

Choice questions

assessing knowledge of Typescript

Code gaps

assessing knowledge of JavaScript, React

Choice questions

assessing knowledge of HTML, CSS

Programming task - Level: Easy

TypeScript | React Hooks | Movies State Management - Complete movies management application using React Hooks by implementing state management to existing views.

Share post

Verify & develop coding skills seamlessly.

See DevSkiller products in action.