When hiring a web developer, it’s good to have a set of established questions to ask the candidate, not to catch them out, but to ascertain the level the candidate is working at.

We’ve all gone through the learning process (and still are in certain areas) so it is unfair to judge most answers as a negative response.

Rather than creating a list of closed questions where the candidate can only answer a right or wrong answer, I wanted to delve more into the candidate’s mindset, their motivation and experience, their experiences, their ambitions.

With this in mind, and a little help from some friends and peers on Twitter, I collated the following open questions.

1. Briefly tell us about yourself and your work history?
2. What do you know about [the company] and what is your opinion of our website?
3. Based on the role profile, which of your strengths best fit the requirements?
4. What’s your preferred development environment? (Windows, Mac, Linux)
5. What experience do you have (if any) with ASP.NET or PHP?
6. What do Web Standards mean to you?
7. When do you use a HTML table?
8. What are the benefits of using CSS?
9. Give some examples where you have used JavaScript.
10. If you have used any JavaScript libraries, which is your favourite and why?
11. Which PHP/ASP.NET frameworks have you used and which is your favourite?
12. What methods could you use to speed up the load time of a webpage?
13. How can you improve the accessibility of an online form?
14. Give some examples where Microformats are appropriate and where you have used them.
15. Explain the process you would go through to debug a webpage or web app.
16. (And finally…) What is it you like about being a web developer?

This is by no means a final list of questions but a starting block. You might think of other questions that are more appropriate to the role your company has created but I felt the above questions are at the level you come to expect from the modern web developer.

Feel free to contribute your own favourite questions to the comments below too.

It may have been a short and bumpy ride but, equally, it’s been educational and emotional. Last Summer, I started working at Yahoo! Europe in the heart of London’s West End. After nearly a year, it saddens me to say it is time to turn the page and move on to the next exhilirating chapter that is my career. As of 5pm this evening, I shall no longer be a Yahoo.

When I took the plunge last June and handed in my notice at West Midlands Fire Service, I knew I was signing up for quite a large challenge, mentally and physically. Yahoo! hired only the finest web developers in the industry so expectations were high. Personally, I had long admired the work of many Yahoo’s such as Christian Heilmann, Tom Coates and Drew Mclellan so it was a great honour to join the team too.

On joining the company, I was thrown in the deep end on a new community-driven website (that I’m still under an NDA on so can’t really elaborate). I was glad to see Yahoo! was mainly a PHP house so I felt comfortable getting my hands dirty on the code, as well as conversing with colleagues over Best Practises for certain aspects of the development process. It was a refreshing change to see active discussions in the team and department as a whole - it all felt right. Christian pushed the idea of Lightning Talks, giving members of the team a five minute outlet opportunity to showcase their recent studies, Norm was busy compiling “Norm’s Laws” (better described as Best Practises in the coding world) while everyone enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of working in (arguably) the coolest company in the World. From a professional point of view, I was in heaven!

So what changed? Commuting to and from London daily was never going to be easy. Everyone said that. But, in all honesty, it didn’t bother me. Apart from the ridiculous maintenance works on the East Coast Mainline, it only took an hour and half from door to door and with 50 minutes or so on the train to relax or work. The biggest problem was the cost. With the hike in prices at the start of 2008, my monthly travel cost was in excess of £600 which simply exceeded my budget for travel. Among other reasons, I decided it was time to move on and find something local to home.

On browsing the Reed recruitment website, I found a few positions that interested me so sent off the recently refreshed resumé and got a fairly fast response from one company. The interview was pretty prompt and, within the day, they were offering me a package I couldn’t turn down. So, as of Tuesday 27th May, I shall be responsible for the migration and redevelopment of the online presence for high-end vehicle insurance company Premium Choice, a branch of KGM. The company are based in the recently refurbished Fort Dunlop building near the M6 of Birmingham so travelling will be cheaper and quicker and it also allows me to spend more time with the family (flexi time is certainly a benefit worth seeking too ).

While it is a shame to be leaving Yahoo! at such an interesting time (the products that are lined up for the next year or two look really exciting), as well as leaving behind a lot of great friends, I am really looking forward to starting the new job. There will be a lot more responsibility involved that shall cover a lot broader range of skills than was required at Yahoo! or WMFS but that hasn’t disheartened me. I am determined to deliver some high-end products to match the high-end market Premium Choices target and I already have some interesting ideas to develop with the company that have never really penetrated the insurance market up to now. Let’s just say “watch this space”…

Some of you might be interested to hear that Yahoo! are looking for some new Web Developers.

Ideally, they’re looking for juniors so they can adapt to the company methods a bit easier but that’s not essential. As long as the candidate is passionate about Web Standards and can demonstrate their ability with some examples, that should be enough to land an interview.

For anyone who is interested or might know of someone who is, you can download the job description here.

From a personal point of view, this is a great opportunity. Yahoo! is a great company to work for (regardless of all the negative press lately) who are keen advocates of the Web Standards movement and adopting modern methods and technologies such as OpenID and the Semantic Web. As far as your personal development is concerned, there is a huge team of amazingly talented “Webdevs” for you to mix with while picking their brains and training packages (internally and externally) are fantastic too.

Give me a shout if you want in, sending me a CV with some example URLs.

I’ll also be at the next Multipack meeting on Saturday 12th April 2008 if you want to ask me any questions directly.

Yahoo! Junior Web Developer - Job Description

As the world’s number one Internet brand Yahoo! delivers news, entertainment, information and fun to over a half billion people every day. Our European web development team, based in London, is seeking standards-savvy front-end developers to work on Europe’s busiest sites.

You should be able to provide examples of your work showing use of progressive enhancement techniques (e.g. unobtrusive scripting), and clear separation of structure, presentation and behaviour layers.

Required Skills

• Hand-coded (X)HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Solid knowledge of standards-based, accessible, cross-browser web development
• PHP programming skills
• User-level experience with BSD/Linux
• Experience using version control systems such as CVS & Subversion

Desirable Skills

• Client- and server�side performance optimisation techniques
• Search engine optimisation
• Experience in developing web applications with rich client interfaces using AJAX, drag and drop, and other DOM Scripting techniques.
• Experience with JavaScript libraries, especially the YUI
• Experience of Web Services (eg REST, SOAP, XML-RPC)
• Knowledge of web site internationalisation issues and experience developing web sites in multiple languages particularly in Europe.
• Use of the following technologies: XML/XSLT, Perl, Microformats, JSON, Flash/Flex
• Experience developing functionality/applications by assembling existing code modules

Responsibilities

You will work closely with Information Architects, Visual Designers, User Researchers, Software Engineers, and Product Managers to ensure that our web based products in Europe provide the best possible experience for our users.

First off, apologies for the lack of updates lately. As you might have noticed, there have been many changes in my life over the last few months. In a nutshell, here’s the lowdown:

1. We’ve moved house. If life couldn’t have been made any more complex with an eight month old baby and changing jobs, things have been a little stressful with moving house too. I mentioned previously that we’ve found a new house in Rugby but we have  now been living there for just over a month. Thankfully, its a brand new building so maintenance and decoration is minimal. Still, moving house is time (and energy) consuming so you can imagine how tired we all are.
2. I now work at Yahoo!. Last Monday, I started my job as a Web Developer at Yahoo! UK in London. After working in local government for nearly four years, the change has been quite overwhelming. Not only am I now sitting amongst the most talented Web developers on the circuit, I’ve also had to jump on a pretty huge project right towards the end of completion. Obviously, they’re not expecting a lot from me in the first few weeks but I am doing my utmost best to fulfill any expectations.
3. Greece is calling. Tomorrow, I am going away with the immediate family for a week in Corfu. The holiday was planned way before all this other stuff cropped up but we are in desperate need for a break after the stresses of moving house, changing jobs and the first nine months of parenthood. Even with one of the worst heatwaves in European history awaiting us, we can’t wait to just relax by a pool away from the hustle and bustle of city life.
4. The podcast will be delayed. With all this going on, I’ve not had time to find the material to collate in to a mix for the podcast. The majority of the work is done but you’ll probably have to wait until after the holidays for your next dose of One Phat DJ. Apologies to all those subscribers who are eagerly awaiting some uplifting funky house during the dismal British Summer - it’ll come, I promise!

That’ll do for now. I just thought I should update the blog after nearly a month of nothing. Enjoy your Summer!