Hiring guide for Elixir Date Engineers

Elixir Date Developer Hiring Guide

**Elixir** is a general-purpose, functional programming language designed by José Valim and first released in 2012. It is built on top of the Erlang VM and shares many of its features, including concurrency, pattern matching, and hot code reloading. Elixir is designed to be a modern, fast, and safe language that is easy to learn and use. * **Elixir is a general-purpose, functional programming language.** * **It is built on top of the Erlang VM.** * **It shares many of Erlang's features, including concurrency, pattern matching, and hot code reloading.** * **It is designed to be a modern, fast, and safe language that is easy to learn and use.** * **Elixir was first released in 2012.**

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

First 20 minutes

General Elixir Date app knowledge and experience

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

What is the primary use of Elixir Date?
Elixir Date is primarily used for handling dates in Elixir. It provides functionality to create, manipulate, and format dates.
How would you create a new date in Elixir?
You can create a new date in Elixir using the Date.new/3 function, which takes year, month, and day as arguments. For example, Date.new(2022, 1, 1) would create a new date for January 1, 2022.
What are the key functions provided by Elixir Date for manipulating dates?
Elixir Date provides a variety of functions for manipulating dates, including add/2 for adding days to a date, replace/2 for replacing parts of a date, and diff/2 for calculating the difference between two dates.
Describe the difference between the add/2 and replace/2 functions in Elixir Date.
The add/2 function is used to add a certain number of days to a date, while the replace/2 function is used to replace a specific part of a date, such as the year, month, or day.
How would you calculate the difference between two dates in Elixir?
You can calculate the difference between two dates in Elixir using the Date.diff/2 function. This function takes two dates as arguments and returns the difference in days.
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What you’re looking for early on

Does the candidate have a strong understanding of Elixir and its ecosystem?
Has the candidate demonstrated experience with date and time manipulation in Elixir?
Can the candidate effectively debug Elixir code?
Is the candidate familiar with OTP and concurrent programming in Elixir?

Next 20 minutes

Specific Elixir Date 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 possible return values of the Date.compare/2 function?
The Date.compare/2 function in Elixir returns :lt if the first date is earlier than the second, :eq if the dates are equal, and :gt if the first date is later than the second.
How would you convert a date to a string in Elixir?
You can convert a date to a string in Elixir using the Date.to_string/1 function. This function takes a date as an argument and returns a string representation of the date in the format YYYY-MM-DD.
Describe the difference between the Date.to_string/1 and Date.to_iso8601/1 functions.
Both Date.to_string/1 and Date.to_iso8601/1 functions convert a date to a string, but the Date.to_iso8601/1 function returns the string in the ISO 8601 format, which includes the time zone information.
What is the purpose of the Date.leap_year?/1 function in Elixir?
The Date.leap_year?/1 function in Elixir is used to determine whether a given year is a leap year. It returns true if the year is a leap year and false otherwise.
How would you parse a string into a date in Elixir?
You can parse a string into a date in Elixir using the Date.from_string/1 function. This function takes a string representation of a date and returns a date.
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The ideal back-end app developer

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

At this point, a skilled Elixir Date engineer should demonstrate strong problem-solving abilities, proficiency in Elixir Date 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 Elixir Date.

What does the following Elixir code do? `Date.utc_today()`
Date.utc_today()
This code returns the current date in UTC.
What will be the output of the following Elixir code? `Date.day_of_week(~D[2022-02-28])`
Date.day_of_week(~D[2022-02-28])
This code will return the day of the week for the given date. In this case, it will return 1 which represents Monday.
What does the following Elixir code do? `Enum.map(dates, &Date.day_of_week/1)`
Enum.map(dates, &Date.day_of_week/1)
This code maps over the 'dates' collection, applying the 'Date.day_of_week' function to each element. It will return a new list with the day of the week for each date in the 'dates' collection.
What does the following Elixir code do? `Task.async(fn -> Date.utc_today() end)`
Task.async(fn -> Date.utc_today() end)
This code runs the function `Date.utc_today()` asynchronously in a separate process using Elixir's Task module. It returns a Task struct which can be awaited on.

Wrap-up questions

Final candidate for Elixir Date 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 Elixir Date application deployments. Inquire about their experience in handling system failures and their approach to debugging and troubleshooting.

What are the possible return values of the Date.day_of_week/1 function?
The Date.day_of_week/1 function in Elixir returns an integer representing the day of the week, where 1 is Monday and 7 is Sunday.
Describe the difference between the Date.range/2 and Date.days_in_month/1 functions.
The Date.range/2 function in Elixir returns a range of dates between two given dates, while the Date.days_in_month/1 function returns the number of days in a given month.
How would you convert a DateTime to a Date in Elixir?
You can convert a DateTime to a Date in Elixir using the DateTime.to_date/1 function. This function takes a DateTime as an argument and returns a Date.

Elixir Date application related

Product Perfect's Elixir Date development capabilities

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