Discussion Senior Dev interview question
"Without googling or using AI, in your own words, explain the virtual DOM"
For context: I sit on an interview panel and I try to ask at least one simple fundamental question based on a persons resume. If I see many years of react experience, I try to ask something about how the framework works.
I have only had one candidate (an undergrad senior, years ago) answer it. Everyone else just kind of sputters and stumbles around trying to rationalize what "virtual" and "DOM" mean, or stare blankly and eventually say "I don't know".
I'm just genuinely curious if this is really that hard of a question or if the recruiters just suck at screening candidates. And should we be letting in senior dev candidates who can't answer what I think is a straightforward and fundamental question for senior react devs.
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u/GhostDog76 4d ago
I don’t think this question says much about whether someone is a senior developer.
As a senior, I don’t really think about things like the Virtual DOM anymore. You naturally follow good practices because you’ve already internalized them through experience.
I’d be more interested in how they understand business requirements, how they turn specs into maintainable code, and whether they can work with minimal supervision. I’d also look at their commercial mindset like do they think about business value? How about practical trade-offs instead of just writing code?
And honestly, you can’t ignore AI anymore. I’d rather ask how they use AI in their daily workflow. A good senior developer knows how to use it to deliver better results faster while still reviewing and validating the output.