{"id":8990,"date":"2026-03-26T10:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontendmasters.com\/blog\/?p=8990"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:27:09","slug":"the-top-trait-companies-look-for-in-a-technical-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontendmasters.com\/blog\/the-top-trait-companies-look-for-in-a-technical-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"The Top Trait Companies Look For in a Technical Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hi \ud83d\udc4b \u2014 I am Abishek Jakhar. I work as a Senior Software Engineer at Coinbase, and I also run my product called FrontPrep,<\/a> which helps candidates prepare for frontend engineer interviews.<\/span> I have interviewed many candidates in my professional career at Coinbase and Expedia. I am also a top-rated mentor on MentorCruise, where I help engineers get new jobs, prepare for interviews, conduct mock interviews, and develop new frontend skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to front-end interviews, companies often ask you to do various things, typically broken into rounds. Those rounds might be things like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. User Interface <\/strong>– Companies ask you to build a user interface based on an image.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. JavaScript Coding <\/strong>– You are asked to create a JavaScript function like debounce, a custom promise, etc., or a custom mini library like a virtualization list, an analytics librar<\/span>y, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. System Design <\/strong>– You are asked to tell how you would go about creating an application from scratch. For example, you could be asked to design a JIRA board in which you outline your approach to which library\/framework you will use, styling, performance, accessibility, component architecture, how the backend API response will map to your components, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. MCQ<\/strong> – Multiple-choice questions are asked in technical phone screen rounds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. AI Proficiency<\/strong> – Companies are now asking how you use AI in your day-to-day work to increase productivity.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Let’s focus on that first one: a user interface front-end interview question asked at Atlassian called Bar Chart. I will help you understand the prompt, requirements, and solution. Then we will go over how interviewers judge your solution and the common mistakes that candidates make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Before diving into the actual question, I would like to discuss the most important thing that candidates overlook in a front-end technical interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Imagine you are in a technical front-end interview, and you have been asked to build a user interface. You just start coding the solution without discussing your approach with the interviewer. You’ve already missed a very important process. Ideally, you should have taken the first 5-10 minutes to discuss your approach and thought process with the interviewer, started coding, and, while coding, conveyed all the important code-level decisions you were considering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It is very important because, in our day-to-day work, we engineers discuss architecture, explain code, and understand our colleagues’ code, so it is essential to be able to explain your code. Also, interviewers are always looking for candidates who can explain their code well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You do not need to explain every line; however, you do need to explain important decisions that you are taking while writing the code. Some very common examples could be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n