If you read a thread on hiring, you'll learn that you can't ask a coding question, you can't do a take-home coding test, you can't talk through system design, you can't expect people to have a Github or portfolio, and you certainly can't rely on academic credentials. At that point, it sounds like you have to hire the first person that responds to your want ad, and I'm sure someone is against that too.
The only consensus is that people that care strongly one way or another will write a comment. Those that don't really care just go read some other article ;)
1. The author is focusing on the first 10 lines, not the whole document. 2. Their "perfect answers" have the candidate essentially reciting the reference docs verbatim.
That to me reads very differently from reading and discussing the whole HTML file. It reads much more like gotcha questions or an expectation that your candidate has extremely specific, arcane knowledge.
For example, the perfect answer for line 1 includes:
> This was especially annoying because each standard generated a different layout so this tag was adopted to make it easy for browsers. Previously, DOCTYPE tags were long and even included the specification link (kinda like SVGs have today), but luckily the simple <!doctype html> was standardized in HTML5 and still lives on.
So to the author, one should ideally not just know what "<!doctype html>" is for, but also be able to rattle off complaints against the previous revisions of HTML. The whole article just comes off as very verbose and stifling. (For that line he does allow for a more basic, but still verbose, answer)
Is it unreasonable for a senior frontend engineer to rely on references for some of these extremely specific details?
! then tab (emmet).
To me though most important is that viewport scale 1 and similar tangent, using offsetWidth for Mac's higher DPI screen.
The way I see a Senior is someone who can autonomously get shit done. How does testing for specific knowledge help determine if someone is capable of solving problems autonomously? If they don't have knowledge they should be able to seek it out.
Another definition I’ve seen is “a senior developer is a developer who can turns other developers into senior developers”
Whereas someone who can autonomously get shit done (and may or may not be good at the earlier definitions) is a “contractor”.
> Note that since our technical discussion is a conversation. I don’t expect a perfect answer from anyone. If I hear some right keywords, I know that the candidate knows the concept, and I try to push them in the right direction
I.e. if you don't know the concept you don't pass.
And in a comment:
> I would much rather hire an all-rounder with deep knowledge of HTML/CSS/JS rather than a particular framework. This “Twitter source code” test demonstrates just that.
He literally calls it a test.
Also, I'm not saying Seniors are lone wolfs. I'm saying that they should be able to work autonomously (I.e. without supervision). I'm not prescribing what that work entails.