Go Developer Hiring Guide

Hiring Guide for Go Engineers

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

Go, also known as Golang, is a statically typed, compiled programming language developed by Google engineers Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson in 2007. It was publicly announced in 2009 and is designed for efficiency and ease of use with features such as garbage collection and support for concurrent programming. Noted for its simplicity and speed, Go has been used to develop some of the most popular software like Docker and Kubernetes. The language's standard library provides robust support for a variety of functionalities including web server development. Go's open-source nature allows developers worldwide to contribute to its growth and evolution.

First 20 minutes

General Go knowledge and experience

The next 20 minutes of the interview should attempt to focus more specifically on the development questions used, and the level of depth and skill the engineer possesses.

How would you use pointers in Go?

Pointers in Go are used to hold the memory address of a value. The type *T is a pointer to a T value. The zero value of a pointer is nil. We use the & operator to generate a pointer to its operand and the * operator to denote the pointer's underlying value.

What is the zero value in Go and how does it work?

The zero value is the default value for a variable declared without an explicit initial value. For example, the zero value for numerical types is 0, for booleans it's false, and for strings it's an empty string.

How would you declare variables in Go?

Variables in Go can be declared using the 'var' keyword. For example: var x int. You can also declare and initialize a variable at the same time, for example: var x int = 10. If the variable is inside a function, you can use the short assignment statement := for declaring and initializing.

What are the basic types in Go?

Go has several types including bool, string, int, int8, int16, int32, int64, uint, uint8, uint16, uint32, uint64, uintptr, byte, rune, float32, float64, complex64, complex128.

How would you install Go on your local machine?

You can download the binary release suitable for your system from the official Go website. After downloading, you can extract the archive and set the environment variables like GOROOT, GOPATH, and PATH.

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What youre looking for early-on

Is the candidate comfortable with software development methodologies like Agile or Scrum?

This is important as these methodologies are commonly used in software development and can improve team productivity and efficiency.

How well does the candidate understand and apply Go testing and debugging?

This is crucial in ensuring the candidate can create reliable and bug-free code.

Does the candidate show an understanding of concurrent programming?

Go is well-known for its simplicity in handling concurrent programming. A good Go developer should be comfortable with this concept.

Can the candidate effectively solve problems using Go?

This is important as the main role of a developer is to solve problems using the tools at their disposal.

Does the candidate have experience with Go frameworks and libraries?

This is important as it shows that the candidate can leverage existing tools to speed up development and improve code quality.

Has the candidate demonstrated a strong understanding of Go language?

This is necessary as a strong foundation in the language is crucial for the role.

Next 20 minutes

Specific Go development questions

The next 20 minutes of the interview should attempt to focus more specifically on the development questions used, and the level of depth and skill the engineer possesses.

How would you use channels in Go?

Channels are the pipes that connect concurrent goroutines. You can send values into channels from one goroutine and receive those values into another goroutine. Create a new channel with make(chan val-type). Channels are typed by the values they convey.

What are goroutines in Go?

Goroutines are functions or methods that run concurrently with other functions or methods. Goroutines are lightweight threads managed by the Go runtime. You can start a goroutine simply by adding the keyword go before a function call.

How would you handle errors in Go?

Go uses a special built-in error type to handle errors. A function that might return an error has it as its last return value. If the error is nil, no error happened. Otherwise, the error contains a description of what went wrong. This approach makes it easy to see which functions return errors and to handle them using the same language constructs employed for any other, non-error tasks.

What are structs in Go and how would you use them?

Structs are a way to group together variables of different types. They're useful when you want to create types that contain several pieces of related information. You can declare a struct using the type and struct keywords, and access its fields using dot notation.

Describe the difference between array and slices in Go.

Arrays have a fixed size while slices are dynamically sized. Slices, in fact, are more common in Go than traditional arrays. Slices are built on top of arrays and provide more power, flexibility, and convenience compared to arrays.

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The ideal back-end app developer

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

A proficient Go engineer should demonstrate excellent knowledge of Go language syntax, experience with Go's standard library and multithreading, and strong problem-solving skills. Red flags include inability to explain concepts clearly, lack of real-world application examples, or struggles with basic Go syntax and principles.

Digging deeper

Code questions

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

What does the following Go code do?

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	fmt.Println("Hello, World!")
}

This code prints the string 'Hello, World!' to the console.

What will be the output of the following Go code?

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	var a int = 10
	var b int = 20
	fmt.Println(a + b)
}

The output will be '30'. The code adds the values of variables 'a' and 'b' and prints the result.

What does the following Go code do?

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	arr := []int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
	for _, v := range arr {
		fmt.Println(v)
	}
}

This code prints each element of the array 'arr'. It uses the range keyword to iterate over the array.

What does the following Go code do?

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"sync"
)

var wg sync.WaitGroup

func worker() {
	fmt.Println("Worker function executed")
	wg.Done()
}

func main() {
	wg.Add(1)
	go worker()
	wg.Wait()
}

This code creates a new goroutine and waits for it to finish execution. It uses a WaitGroup from the 'sync' package to block the main function until all goroutines have finished executing.

What does the following Go code do?

package main

import "fmt"

type Employee struct {
	Name string
	Age  int
}

func main() {
	emp := Employee{Name: "John", Age: 30}
	fmt.Println(emp)
}

This code defines a new type 'Employee' as a struct with two fields: 'Name' and 'Age'. It then creates an instance of 'Employee', sets its fields, and prints it.

What does the following Go code do?

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"sync"
	"time"
)

func worker(id int, wg *sync.WaitGroup) {
	defer wg.Done()
	time.Sleep(time.Second)
	fmt.Printf("Worker %d done\n", id)
}

func main() {
	var wg sync.WaitGroup
	for i := 1; i <= 5; i++ {
		wg.Add(1)
		go worker(i, &wg)
	}
	wg.Wait()
}

This code creates five goroutines that simulate work by sleeping for one second. It uses a WaitGroup to ensure that the program doesn't exit until all the goroutines have finished executing.

Wrap-up questions

Final candidate for Go role questions

The final few interview questions for a Go candidate should typically focus on a combination of technical skills, personal goals, growth potential, team dynamics, and company culture.

How would you optimize a Go application for performance?

There are several ways to optimize a Go application for performance. These include using the built-in profiling tools to identify bottlenecks, optimizing memory allocation by reusing objects or reducing allocations, using buffered I/O operations, optimizing CPU usage by using goroutines for concurrent tasks, and fine-tuning garbage collection.

What are interfaces in Go and how would you use them?

Interfaces in Go provide a way to specify the behavior of an object. If something can do this, then it can be used here. Interfaces are defined as a set of function signatures, and any type that implements those functions is said to implement the interface.

How would you test your Go code?

Go has a built-in testing tool called 'go test'. You can write test functions alongside your code in *_test.go files. These functions should start with the word Test and take one argument, a pointer to the testing.T context. If the test fails, call t.Error or t.Fail.

What is a select statement in Go and how would you use it?

The select statement is used to choose from multiple send/receive channel operations. It blocks until one of its cases can run, then it executes that case. If multiple cases are ready it chooses one at random. This is useful when you want to wait for data from multiple channels.

Describe the difference between buffered and unbuffered channels in Go.

Unbuffered channels block the sender until the receiver has received the value, while buffered channels only block the sender when the buffer is full. Similarly, they block the receiver when the buffer is empty.

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Go application related

Product Perfect's Go development capabilities

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