Best interview questions for a Web Developer

Web Developer Interview Questions

Web Developers play a critical role in ensuring your site matches your vision. Among other things, they’re responsible for increasing the capacity of your site, maintaining an acceptable site speed and implementing UI/UX friendly changes to the design. With such a crucial and versatile role it’s important to have the right Web Developer interview questions lined up, so you can make an informed hiring decision.

When hiring for this position, the Web Developer skills and qualifications you should be looking for are:

Proven experience or qualification in web development.
Ability to effectively communicate with design and programming teams.
Proven fluency in HTML, Java and CSS (other languages are a plus.)
Ability to form and implement an effective continuity plan to be used if the site should experience problems.
Great time management and prioritisation skills.
Strong knowledge of network diagnostics.

Depending on the software and coding languages your company uses, more specific Web Developer skills may be required for your role!

Interviewing a Web Developer

Bringing a talented Web Developer into your team can take your site from good to great, so preparing a good set of interview questions for Web Developers is essential. So, to give you a push in the right direction we’ve put together a few example questions below.

It’s worth remembering that these questions are best for use early in the interview process, and will help you decide early on if the candidate is a good fit for the role or not.

How to open the Web Developer job interview

No matter the role, candidates are bound to get nervous before their interview, especially if they are in the early stages of the process! Therefore, it’s a good idea to put them at ease at the start of your conversation, so you can get an authentic overview of their skills and personality.

The most simple way to do this is to start the interview with a couple of upbeat, positive web development questions. This won’t take long, and will have a huge difference on the tone of the rest of the interview!

Job Description available

See our Web Developer Job Description here

For the interview

A positive opener to start

What web development project that you’ve worked on are you most proud of?

What made you decide to pursue a career in web development?

Behavioral Questions

How do you usually prioritise your day to day development tasks?
As this role is sure to involve juggling multiple projects and daily tasks, this is one of the most important questions to ask a website developer as it allows you to assess their multitasking ability.
Of the programming languages you work with, which is your favourite and why?
This question will give you an idea of where the developer’s strengths lie and will also offer a quick insight into their personality. If your business exclusively uses a certain language, it may be worth mentioning this during this part of your your Web Developer interview.
What kind of work environment do you believe you perform best in?
A candidate should be able to display their adaptability here, but can also give you an insight into their personality type and how well they will fit into your team and workplace.
Which other teams, for example, web design or SEO, do you have experience working with?

Soft Skills

How would you deal with a situation where you were working closely with a team member on a project and received code that contained a lot of errors?
Here, you’ll get a good grasp on the candidate’s communication and people skills, as well as an idea of their confidence and how they’ll fit in culturally with your team.
When implementing a new feature on a site with a tight turnaround time, what steps do you take to meet the deadline while still providing quality code?
This is one of the more important website development questions, as developers will often be working to tight deadlines. The answer here should showcase the candidate’s organisation and time management skills, while showing they have the ability to proofread and test their own work.
How do you ensure that you’re constantly improving your coding and development skills?
This answer will give you an idea of how motivated the candidate is as well as whether they’re interested in career development and staying up to date with industry trends.
When looking through our website, were there any points or quick fixes that stood out for improvement? If so, how would you improve them?
A Web Developer will most likely have scanned through your company website prior to the interview. Here, they’ll have the chance to show off their initiative and research skills, as well as giving you an idea of what benefits they could provide to your site.
If you’re working on a coding project and are struggling to complete it by yourself, what steps do you take to find assistance?
This question gives the candidate the chance to show off their collaboration skills, as well as their ability to ask for help if needed. For a role that works so closely with other stakeholders, these are essential Web Developer skills.
How would you explain API to a stakeholder from a non-development team, meaning they don’t have a technical skillset?
Here, you’ll get another idea of the candidate’s communication skills and ability to collaborate with other teams.

Hard Skills

Name a few of the steps that you’d take to improve a web application’s loading time?
This will be one of the most reoccurring ad-hoc tasks that a Web Developer will receive, therefore a candidate should be able to answer these questions quickly and confidently. Simple steps like optimising images should be mentioned.
What tools do you rely on when diagnosing and fixing a bug on a web page?
One of the most important skills a Web Developer has is to quickly find and fix bugs. Here you’ll get a good idea of what browser, toolset and troubleshooting method a candidate uses and how this fits with your current team.
What skills do you hold which make you an excellent Web Developer?
Here the candidate will get the opportunity to tell you which skills they think are their strongest, as well as displaying their confidence and strengths in the web development field.
When working with multiple different stylesheets, how do you integrate them into a website?
This is a technical web development interview question, which will give you a great understanding of how well the candidate knows their role.
When building a web application, how do you ensure you’re taking both UX and SEO into consideration?
The answer here will, again, let you know how well the candidate understands and works with other departments in the business. It will also give an insight into their approach to their workflow.

Operational / Situational Questions

Describe your planning and working process when writing a new web application from scratch.
Here you’ll get a full overview of the candidate’s time management, motivation and working process. You’re also likely to get an insight into their past experience.
Tell me about a time when you’ve not been fully satisfied with a piece of work that you’ve produced, and what you did to combat this?
As well as getting an idea of what projects the applicant has worked on before, you’ll get an overview of their ability to proofread and improve their own work here. This is an excellent skill for a Web Developer to have, as they will play a huge part in producing what the consumer sees.
Walk me through a time where you’ve had to deal with poor communication from a stakeholder in a project you were working on.
This answer will give you an idea of how the candidate works as part of a team, as well as how they manage and control their projects. As they will often be working to a tight deadline, it is important that they feel confident enough to make decisions or give directions that will ensure their project is finished.
If you received constructive feedback on a coding project you had done, how would you handle this and ensure you took it on board for your next project?
The ability to adapt and improve based on feedback is especially important if your candidate will be working closely with other developers as this will allow for knowledge transfer between your team.
When working on numerous projects at once, which all have similar deadlines, how do you prioritise these?
Here you’ll get an idea of how well a candidate understands your business mission, as well as their communication and time management skills.