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I think you make an excellent observation that FE is a system engineering challenge. Algorithms do play an important role as you can see in this great presenta

I think you make an excellent observation that FE is a system engineering challenge. Algorithms do play an important role as you can see in this great presentation by Marc de Marco (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90NsjKvz9Ns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90NsjKvz9Ns) However I think it's fair to say most FE engineers apply existing solutions and the system design is a bigger part of their role. I differentiate between UI Engineering and Front-End Engineering. The former emphasises design integration (pixels) and performance (rendering). The latter is broader scope and emphasises the systems engineering. Both have to deal with system design. UI is about components and messaging across the components with the front-end application being the "system". FE is about components that integrate the front-end application with what have traditionally been back-end APIs and services. In many cases when people say FE they mean both FE and UI. I would not get hung up on these but they help to clarify what you are talking about and who you are trying to hire. In the case of design and pixels there are specific challenges around dealing with layout and CSS and achieving 60fps. Creating UI components is an exciting area. For example see Pure UI (http://rauchg.com/2015/pure-ui/ http://rauchg.com/2015/pure-ui/) by @rauchg. Mess in Web Components (https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/06/the-state-of-web-components/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/06/the-state-of-web-component...). Challenge of style encapsulation... So there are a lot of unique challenges and skills and experience required in UI engineering. There are also exciting developments that start to push more overlap between UI and FE. For example GraphQL - the UI is "language" that "programs" what was traditionally the back-end API. I sounds like you have had some unfortunate interview experiences. The interview process should be about uncovering the talent and potential - not one-upmanship. I have an article on Medium that is the foundation of my interviews: https://medium.com/@johanstn/initiating-ui-engineering-conversations-946906b4c710 https://medium.com/@johanstn/initiating-ui-engineering-conve... What are you missing? I would not say you are missing anything. Rather a case of pulling together your skills and focussing them on what you really enjoy doing. It sounds like it is UI more than FE. If that's correct then your engineering expertise will lie on componentization, engineering applications ("system") and UI performance. Demonstrate your skills with real examples, projects, code you use to learn and experiment.

seige 11y ago
I really like your article on Medium on initiating UI Engineering questions. It took me a while but as an interviewer myself, i realized that I need to move away from an interviewing style that is strictly looking for answers that can be evaluated objectively. A couple of them are good to check for fundamental know-how but a process designed around just them just doesn't bring the right balance. Both left and right part of the brain need to be cross-checked on for a good candidate.
- jsteenkamp 11y ago
  Depending on the level and requirements of the role, junior to senior, coding to architecture, the emphasis shifts from what you can do today with specific knowledge and understanding, to what you think we should be doing tomorrow with insights and reasoned opinion. The answers are important but how you answer the questions, or reason about them when you don't know, more so.

seige 11y ago

I really like your article on Medium on initiating UI Engineering questions. It took me a while but as an interviewer myself, i realized that I need to move away from an interviewing style that is strictly looking for answers that can be evaluated objectively. A couple of them are good to check for fundamental know-how but a process designed around just them just doesn't bring the right balance. Both left and right part of the brain need to be cross-checked on for a good candidate.

jsteenkamp 11y ago
Depending on the level and requirements of the role, junior to senior, coding to architecture, the emphasis shifts from what you can do today with specific knowledge and understanding, to what you think we should be doing tomorrow with insights and reasoned opinion. The answers are important but how you answer the questions, or reason about them when you don't know, more so.