Feb 1, 2022 2 min read Software Offshore Team

Part 1 of 4: Technical skills. How to interview a web developer. Top questions to ask and why.

Introduction

Hiring a web developer nowadays is not that easy. To give you the tools how to hire the best developer for the work and your team, we enlisted the top questions to ask and why. We ordered the questions in four categories: technical skills, personal skills, organizational skills and motivational skills. Use these questions in your next interview and you know exactly what the candidate is capable of.

If you are not comfortable by interviewing candidates, if you need some help with interviewing or if you just want assistance in extending your team… Give us a call and our team will inform you about the possibilities.

So let’s start with the interview! Part one of four of the questionnaire: Technical skills.

Technical skills

What are your favorite development tools and why?

Insight in all available tools can show eagerness to learn. Did he try them all and can he change his way of work depending the requirements of the project?

In what programming languages are you good at?

Pure technical knowledge. What do you need to get the job done? Is his knowledge of these languages good enough?

What skills and technologies are you the most interested in improving upon or learning?

Not all technical skills can be developed well. After all, it’s impossible to be an expert in everything. Does he know that he can improve himself? Or does he think that he is the best? How fair can he be? And is he willing to improve. Also important is the way these skills are needed for the company. Does he need them in his work? How are these skills related to your expectations as a company. And do they fit in your company’s strategy?

What are the frameworks you have used in your projects?

Pure technical knowledge. What do you need to get the job done? Is his knowledge of these frameworks good enough? What framework do you need for what project?

Do you do full stack development? Or just backend/frontend?

A well versed and diversified developer is shown in this question. What aligned you to fullstack development? If frontend/backend, why did you limit yourself to that? is that your chosen specialization? if yes, why? if no, please explain.

What are the scripting tools you use?

There are types of scripting tools. client server scripting and server side scripting. This question should show the experience of the developer in his projects.

Are you familiar with SDLC?

If he is not familiar with this, this might mean that he does not know the process in software development.

What are the databases you are familiar with? Do you know how to handle non-SQL databases as well?

This question only wants to know if the developer is diverse in using different kinds of databases.

Can you show us previous work? Do you have a portfolio to show us?

The best way to see if the developer has enough technical skills is to take a look at his portfolio. Is he creatively or logically oriented? Has he finished projects? Or only incomplete ones? If it is the last it could be a sign of inexperience or of incompetence.