Product Perfect

The Actor computer software programming language, developed by Charles Duff in the 1980s, is a pioneering example of object-oriented programming. It was designed to facilitate concurrent computing and simplify the creation of interactive graphical user interfaces. The language's name derives from its use of "actors", independent entities that communicate via message passing - a model coined by Carl Hewitt in 1973. Actor was implemented on Lisp machines at MIT and influenced subsequent languages like Erlang and Scala. Its development has been documented extensively in academic papers published through ACM Digital Library.

Ask the right questions secure the right Actor talent among an increasingly shrinking pool of talent.

First 20 minutes

General Actor app knowledge and experience

The first 20 minutes of the interview should seek to understand the candidate's general background in Actor application development, including their experience with various programming languages, databases, and their approach to designing scalable and maintainable systems.

Can you explain what Actor Model is?

Actor Model is a conceptual model to deal with concurrent computation. It defines some general rules for how the system's components should behave and interact with each other.

What are the main components of the Actor Model?

The main components of the Actor Model are actors, messages, and mailboxes. Actors are the primitive units of computation, messages are the information that actors send to each other, and mailboxes are where actors receive their messages.

How would you handle failure in the Actor Model?

In the Actor Model, failure is handled by supervisors. A supervisor is an actor whose job is to monitor other actors and decide what to do if they fail.

What is the role of messages in the Actor Model?

Messages in the Actor Model are the primary means of communication between actors. Actors communicate by sending and receiving messages.

Describe the difference between Actor Model and Object-Oriented Programming.

In Object-Oriented Programming, objects communicate by invoking methods, while in the Actor Model, actors communicate by sending messages. Also, the Actor Model has built-in support for concurrency and distribution, which is not the case with traditional Object-Oriented Programming.

The hiring guide has been successfully sent to your email address.

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

What you’re looking for early on

Has the candidate demonstrated a strong understanding of acting techniques and methods?

Does the candidate show creativity and imagination?

Is the candidate able to handle criticism and feedback well?

Does the candidate have good communication skills?

Next 20 minutes

Specific Actor development questions

The next 20 minutes of the interview should focus on the candidate's expertise with specific backend frameworks, their understanding of RESTful APIs, and their experience in handling data storage and retrieval efficiently.

What are the benefits of using the Actor Model?

The Actor Model provides a high level of abstraction for dealing with concurrency and distributed computing, which can make development easier and more efficient. It also provides strong guarantees about the order of message processing, which can simplify reasoning about concurrent systems.

How would you implement an Actor in Java?

In Java, an Actor can be implemented using the Akka framework, which provides a Java API for creating and managing actors.

What is the role of a mailbox in the Actor Model?

In the Actor Model, a mailbox is where an actor receives its messages. The actor processes the messages in its mailbox one at a time, in the order they were received.

What is the difference between a thread and an actor?

A thread is a low-level construct provided by the operating system, while an actor is a higher-level abstraction provided by the Actor Model. Actors are much lighter weight than threads, and it's possible to have millions of actors in a single system.

How would you implement an actor system in Scala?

In Scala, an actor system can be implemented using the Akka library, which provides a Scala API for creating and managing actors.

The hiring guide has been successfully sent to your email address.

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

At this point, a skilled Actor engineer should demonstrate strong problem-solving abilities, proficiency in Actor programming language, and knowledge of software development methodologies. Red flags include lack of hands-on experience, inability to articulate complex concepts, or unfamiliarity with standard coding practices.

Digging deeper

Code questions

These will help you see the candidate's real-world development capabilities with Actor.

What does this simple JSON object represent?
{ 'name': 'John Doe', 'age': 30, 'city': 'New York' }
This code represents a JSON object with three properties: name, age, and city. The values of these properties are 'John Doe', 30, and 'New York' respectively.
What will be the output of this JSON.parse() method?
JSON.parse('{ "name":"John", "age":30, "city":"New York" }')
The output will be a JavaScript object with properties name, age, and city. The values of these properties are 'John', 30, and 'New York' respectively.
What does this JSON array manipulation do?
{ 'actors': [ { 'name': 'John Doe', 'age': 30 }, { 'name': 'Jane Doe', 'age': 25 } ] }
This code represents a JSON object with a property 'actors' which is an array of objects. Each object in the array represents an actor with properties name and age.
What does this JSON object with nested arrays represent?
{ 'name': 'John Doe', 'movies': [ { 'title': 'Movie 1', 'year': 2000 }, { 'title': 'Movie 2', 'year': 2005 } ] }
This code represents a JSON object with two properties: name and movies. The name property is a string representing the name of an actor. The movies property is an array of objects, each representing a movie with properties title and year.

Wrap-up questions

Final candidate for Actor Developer role questions

The final few questions should evaluate the candidate's teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills. Additionally, assess their knowledge of microservices architecture, serverless computing, and how they handle Actor application deployments. Inquire about their experience in handling system failures and their approach to debugging and troubleshooting.

What are the limitations of the Actor Model?

One limitation of the Actor Model is that it can be difficult to enforce consistency across actors, especially in a distributed system. Another limitation is that it can be difficult to reason about the behavior of a system of actors, especially when they interact in complex ways.

How would you handle state in the Actor Model?

In the Actor Model, state is encapsulated within actors. Each actor has its own private state, which can only be accessed by the actor itself. This makes it easier to reason about state and avoid race conditions.

What is the difference between a process and an actor?

A process is a running instance of a program, while an actor is a computational entity in the Actor Model. Each actor has its own private state and behavior, and communicates with other actors by sending and receiving messages.

Actor application related

Product Perfect's Actor development capabilities

Beyond hiring for your Actor engineering team, you may be in the market for additional help. Product Perfect provides seasoned expertise in Actor projects, and can engage in multiple capacities.

Actor Consultive assessments

Actor Application Conversion Assessment Actor Application Integration Assessment Actor Data & Database Integration Assessment

Custom Actor development projects

Custom Actor App Conversion Actor Custom App Development Process App UI Design for Actor Facelifts

Hiring guide for Actor Engineers

Actor Developer Hiring Guide

What you’re looking for early on

The ideal back-end app developer

What you’re looking to see on the Actor engineer at this point.

Actor Consultive assessments

Custom Actor development projects