How to Recruit a Frontend Hero
codemonkeyism.com
codemonkeyism.com
Additionally, the article never really touched on how to recruit these people - it just lists screening questions to ask during an interview. To recruit a Frontend Hero, you need to hire great designers and create a culture that treats front end engineers as first class citizens.
Incidentally, we're doing that at Airbnb right now. http://www.airbnb.com/jobs/show/8
I figure if I ever need to hire a "frontend hero" my checklist will be very short. Do you have a sizable portfolio, and does your stuff look like the stuff I want? If so, you're in the running.
When I talk with people I don't want them to recite these solutions. I want to see if they know their ressources.
You should be able to get a pretty good idea on my capabilities by looking at my code/projects and how I handled the challenges of building them, not how well I can answer whether to use CSS hacks or conditional stylesheets (because there's not one correct answer anyways).
Q: What methods do you know to realize columns?
A: cleardiv
clearfix (better one)
In my opinion any competent frontend developer should know these, not enough for the hero. On the other hand, to be able to interview hero you should be at least on that level yourself, which is not the case there, imho.
Q: What methods do you know to realize columns?
Otherwise, a grasp of how the users will interact with your app and what constraints that imposes on the front end is far more important than their ability to regurgitate CSS clearfix syntax and knowledge of server side javascript frameworks they might not have to learn.
One of the situations where they can be really helpful, though, is in developing a functional prototype. The code is going to be a bit bloated, but most of it is meant to be thrown away in any case.
Also, a bunch of these questions were far more relevant during the IE6 era which is now finally at a decline. I would care that someone knows how to code for IE6, but that requires one question since all IE6 bugs are very well documented, just make sure the person is aware.
I would add: When all else fails, use a table. Ha!
hacks, css grids, obscure references, nonstandard way of clearing divs, instead of the much more used and standard overflow:hidden , vendor specific css declarations? printed media references?
here's a few questions that a REAL front end dev would likely answer:
do you know standards? do you do inline css/js? do you use hacks? do you use grids? if yes, this guy is a neofite and needs to learn how to unbloat his css do you reset your css? do your sites validate? do you like flash in your websites? do you code by hand? do you use autohotkey/zen coding/texter/autoit/etc for coding? do you despise expression web/dreamweaver/kompozer? do you use firebug? how do you test for xbrowser testing? do you know what "semantics" mean in a web context?
What's important for me is to see if some understand what is happening behind the scenes. There are so many people who apply a clearfix but do not understand the principles of block contexts.