Technical Phone Screen — Frontend

Candidate explains layout models with precision, discusses trade-offs between approaches, and mentions accessibility implications of markup choices. They reference real scenarios from their work.

Candidate confuses flexbox and grid, cannot explain specificity beyond 'use !important', or shows no awareness of semantic HTML or accessibility.

Candidate demonstrates deep understanding of JS internals, explains concepts with concrete examples, and connects them to real-world UI scenarios like avoiding jank or managing state.

Candidate gives textbook definitions without practical application, confuses async patterns, or cannot explain how the event loop relates to rendering.

Candidate articulates clear principles for component decomposition, understands the trade-offs of different state management approaches, and can discuss lifecycle/effect patterns with nuance.

Candidate cannot explain component architecture beyond basic syntax, puts all state in global store without reasoning, or shows no awareness of rendering performance.

Candidate discusses code splitting, lazy loading, image optimization, and can explain the critical rendering path. They mention specific tools like Lighthouse, DevTools Performance tab, or Web Vitals.

Candidate has no strategy beyond 'make fewer API calls', cannot describe browser rendering pipeline, or has never used performance profiling tools.

Candidate describes a testing strategy with clear rationale for what belongs in unit vs. integration vs. E2E tests. They mention testing user behavior over implementation details.

Candidate has no testing experience, tests only implementation details (e.g., checking internal state), or dismisses testing as unnecessary for frontend.