

Ask HN: What should I look for when hiring a junior developer? - Kerrick

I&#x27;ve got experience hiring developers, and I&#x27;m used to asking a mixture of technical questions and interview questions to gauge a person&#x27;s skill and their passion.<p>However, my company is now hiring for a junior developer position. I&#x27;m completely baffled at how to approach the interviews. I feel like I can&#x27;t ask my usual technical questions because we&#x27;re specifically hiring under that skill level. What&#x27;s a good way to get a read on somebody&#x27;s ability to learn new things in an interview?
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jhwhite
What language(s) are you hiring for? I asked a Python lead this question the
other day and here's what he told me:

for a junior, then i'd probably quiz them on some of the fundamental types of
python

tuple vs list

what does it mean to be immutable vs mutable

what's a dictionary

how to define a class

probe them for their understanding of reference counting in cPython (assuming
that's what you guys use)

if they're coming from a CS background or development with C/C++/Java/etc, ask
them for how they think python compares to the other languages

especially dynamic vs static typing

