Going for an in interview is not always a pleasant thing. It can be stressful and it often is. Taking the right steps in advance allows you to reduce stress and raise your level of self-confidence.

A thing to remember is that the person who’s interviewing you is a human-being also. He or she also sits in the room with a stranger trying to make this time as nice as it can be.

1. Remind yourself how does the scope work

If you don’t know – don’t even admit that. Just go, mute your phone and learn. This is absolutely essential thing you need to know about. And I’m now 100% sure you’ll be asked about it.

2. Make sure you know Closures, Anonymous Functions, Immediately-Invoked Function Expressions

JavaScript is a functional language. You should know it’s sugars and closures, anonymous functions and IIFE are the first citizens in this world. Read the articles, make sure you understand the concepts correctly and then write some code to make sure you’ll be able to use them in practice.

3. Get your hands on testing

You should know not only the commonly used testing tools but be able to explain which things you would test in the app. You’ll have to get a good understanding of the test types and patterns and also difference between them. Taking a look at the Test Pyramid is a good thing. Here’s also a very useful slide deck about testing strategies in a microservices architecture written by Martin Fowler.

4. Practice your problem solving skills

Companies often use services like HackerRank or Codility to see how the candidates respond to problems that are being given to them and see their algorithmic skills. But the good thing is – both of the mentioned services also have a ability for developers to practice most common exercises and see the correct answers afterwards. Make sure you reserve some time before going for an interview to practice. It takes time.

5. Keep in mind that being a good developer is not just about writing code – it’s about people

Yes, that’s the most important thing you need to remember regardless of the programming language you use and probably the best advice I can give to someone choosing to be a software developer. Writing code is about people: people who will be using your app and people who you will be collaborating with.

So make sure you’ll ask questions about the product the company is building, about the team or if it’s an agency – what types of clients they are serving, what was the most challenging project etc. The important thing is – the person who is interviewing you has to have the impression that you are really interested in what’s important for them, their clients and employees – not only the money.

Additional resources to look at: