Haskell Developer Hiring Guide

Hiring Guide for Haskell Engineers

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

Haskell is a purely functional programming language, named after the logician Haskell Curry, and was first introduced in 1990 by a committee of academics. It is renowned for its high degree of abstraction and mathematical accuracy, making it ideal for complex computational tasks. The language's design emphasizes correctness and predictability, with features like static typing and lazy evaluation. Haskell has influenced numerous other programming languages including Scala, Swift, and Rust. Its development is managed by the open-source community under the stewardship of the Haskell.org committee.

First 20 minutes

General Haskell 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 a list in Haskell?

In Haskell, lists are a homogenous data structure. They can be created by enclosing the elements in square brackets, for example: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

What does it mean that Haskell is a statically typed language?

In Haskell, being a statically typed language means that the type of every expression is known at compile time, which leads to safer code and fewer runtime errors.

What are the types of data in Haskell?

Haskell has several types of data including Integer, Float, Double, Bool, Char, and String.

How would you define a function in Haskell?

A function in Haskell is defined by providing a function name, followed by parameters, an equals sign, and then the function body. For example: add x y = x + y.

What is the role of the main function in Haskell?

The main function in Haskell is the entry point of the program. It's where the execution of the program starts.

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What youre looking for early-on

Does the candidate have experience with Haskell libraries and frameworks?

Experience with Haskell libraries and frameworks can be a big plus, as it can help the candidate to be more productive and effective in their work.

Has the candidate shown the ability to write clean, maintainable code?

Writing clean, maintainable code is important in any programming language, including Haskell. This can be assessed by reviewing code samples or through coding tests.

Can the candidate work with monads?

Monads are a fundamental concept in Haskell. A candidate's understanding of monads can be a good indicator of their overall Haskell proficiency.

Is the candidate familiar with Haskell's type system?

Haskell's type system is one of its most distinctive features. A good Haskell developer should be comfortable working with it.

Has the candidate demonstrated the ability to solve complex problems using Haskell?

The ability to solve complex problems using Haskell is a key skill for a Haskell developer. This can be assessed through technical questions or coding tests.

Does the candidate have a strong understanding of functional programming concepts?

Haskell is a purely functional programming language, so a strong understanding of functional programming concepts is essential for a Haskell developer.

Next 20 minutes

Specific Haskell 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.

Describe the difference between 'let' and 'where' in Haskell.

'let' and 'where' are both used to define local bindings in Haskell. The difference is in their scope and order of operations. 'let' bindings are expressions themselves, while 'where' bindings are declarations that are part of other declarations.

What is a monad in Haskell?

A monad in Haskell is a design pattern that allows for computations to be chained together in a sequence, each passing its result onto the next. They are used to handle side effects such as IO, state, or exceptions.

How would you implement recursion in Haskell?

Recursion in Haskell is implemented by defining a function that calls itself. For example, the factorial function can be implemented recursively in Haskell as: factorial 0 = 1; factorial n = n * factorial (n - 1).

What is currying in Haskell?

Currying in Haskell is the technique of translating the evaluation of a function that takes multiple arguments into evaluating a sequence of functions, each with a single argument.

What is a tuple in Haskell and how is it different from a list?

A tuple in Haskell is a sequence of elements of different types. Unlike lists, tuples can store multiple data types and their size is fixed.

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The ideal back-end app developer

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

A skilled Haskell engineer should demonstrate proficiency in functional programming, a deep understanding of Haskell's type system, and ability to solve complex problems using Haskell. Red flags include lack of knowledge about monads, typeclasses, or inability to write idiomatic Haskell code.

Digging deeper

Code questions

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

What does the following Haskell code do?

fizzBuzz n = map fb [1..n] where
  fb x | x `mod` 15 == 0 = "FizzBuzz"
       | x `mod` 3  == 0 = "Fizz"
       | x `mod` 5  == 0 = "Buzz"
       | otherwise = show x

This code defines a function 'fizzBuzz' that takes an integer 'n' and returns a list of strings. Each string represents a number from 1 to 'n', but if the number is divisible by 3, it's replaced with 'Fizz', if it's divisible by 5, it's replaced with 'Buzz', and if it's divisible by both, it's replaced with 'FizzBuzz'.

What will be the output of the following Haskell code?

let x = 5 in let y = 6 in x * y

The output of this code will be 30. This code declares two variables 'x' and 'y' with values 5 and 6 respectively, and then multiplies them.

What does the following Haskell code do?

import Data.List
import Data.Char
digitSum :: Int -> Int
digitSum = sum . map digitToInt . show

This code defines a function 'digitSum' that takes an integer and returns the sum of its digits. It converts the integer to a string, maps each character to its integer value using 'digitToInt', and then sums the resulting list of integers.

What does the following Haskell code do?

import Control.Concurrent
main = forkIO (putStrLn "Hello from a new thread!") >> putStrLn "Hello from the main thread!"

This code creates a new thread that prints 'Hello from a new thread!', and then the main thread prints 'Hello from the main thread!'. The order in which these messages are printed is not deterministic, because the new thread and the main thread are running concurrently.

What does the following Haskell code do?

data Shape = Circle Float | Rectangle Float Float
calculateArea :: Shape -> Float
calculateArea (Circle r) = pi * r * r
calculateArea (Rectangle w h) = w * h

This code defines a data type 'Shape' that can be either a 'Circle' with a radius or a 'Rectangle' with width and height. It also defines a function 'calculateArea' that calculates the area of a shape. If the shape is a circle, it uses the formula for the area of a circle, and if the shape is a rectangle, it uses the formula for the area of a rectangle.

What will be the output of the following Haskell code?

let fibs = 0 : 1 : zipWith (+) fibs (tail fibs) in take 10 fibs

The output of this code will be the first 10 Fibonacci numbers: [0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34]. This code defines an infinite list 'fibs' where each element is the sum of the previous two elements, and then takes the first 10 elements of this list.

Wrap-up questions

Final candidate for Haskell role questions

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

How would you optimize a Haskell program for better performance?

Optimizing a Haskell program for better performance can involve a number of strategies, including using strict evaluation where necessary, optimizing data structures, and using profiling tools to identify bottlenecks.

What is lazy evaluation in Haskell and how does it work?

Lazy evaluation in Haskell means that expressions are not evaluated until their results are needed. This can lead to increased performance and allows the definition of potentially infinite data structures.

How would you implement polymorphism in Haskell?

Polymorphism in Haskell is implemented through type classes. By defining a type class, you can define behavior that can be used across multiple types.

What are type classes in Haskell?

Type classes in Haskell are a way of defining certain behavior for types. They are similar to interfaces in other languages. For example, the 'Eq' type class is used for types that support equality testing.

How would you handle exceptions in Haskell?

Exceptions in Haskell are handled using the 'catch' function. This function takes two arguments: the computation where an exception might be thrown, and a function that takes an exception and returns a computation.

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Haskell application related

Product Perfect's Haskell development capabilities

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