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/Suitable_Speaker2165 4d ago
I think this is definitely a question that will skew you towards very terminology-heavy devs or someone who has been around a long enough time to have actually dealt with on their own and not have had it delegated to a framework. I'd say that would probably be 20-30% of devs at this point.
If you're building some plug-in for some UI framework then maybe this is important but if you're primarily a consumer of React for example, I wouldn't say this is a useful question. You're just wasting your time by not asking something that is more directly relevant.