Pavel Maximov - React Angular

🧠 JavaScript Contractors: How to Prep for Your Next Interview Let’s be honest—it’s a client-driven market right now. That means clients have the power to be selective, and contractors need to be sharp, fast, and ready to deliver value from day one. Whether you're stepping into a short-term gig or a long-term contract, interviews are your moment to show you're not just fast, but smart. Focus on the Fundamentals: 1. Data Structures & Algorithms: Brush up on arrays, maps, recursion, and sorting. 2. Mathematics: Useful for animations, logic, and edge-case handling. 3. Object-Oriented Programming: Think modular, reusable, and maintainable code. 4. API: Know how to design, consume, and debug REST/GraphQL endpoints. 5. Multi-threading Concepts: Understand async/await, event loop, and web workers. 6. Testing: Be ready to talk about unit tests, integration tests, and tools like Jest or Cypress. 🛠️ Practice in Context Use platforms like LeetCode, CodeWars, or even GitHub issues to sharpen your skills. But also rehearse how you’d apply these in real-world JS projects. especially in React, Node.js, or TypeScript environments. 💬 Communicate Clearly Contract roles move fast. Show you can explain your decisions, collaborate well, and hit the ground running. 🎯 Final Tip Prep like you're solving problems for a client, not just passing a test. That mindset makes all the difference. #JavaScript #Contractors #InterviewPrep #FrontendDev #NodeJS #TechCareers #CodingTips #SoftwareEngineering

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Well this is a first. My Claude code agents are having an argument and have asked me to weigh in! This is fascinating! For context: I have a few agents which each have different jobs. I have 2 Opus agents (A code quality enforcer and a lead developer) and 2 Sonnet agents (a regular coder and a high-level orchestrator). I had the coder and lead developer work on building a new component and I could see that they wrote too much code to achieve the goal so I asked them all to review it together. When making the Opus agents, I told the enforcer that it's not there to make friends and it will angrily enforce correct coding standards if it thinks they are right and will not yield a point until it feels that the other point of view has been thoroughly justified. Perhaps I went to far and he's actually a monster to work with! 😂 --- Both reviewers agree the component is over-engineered, but the enforcer keeps fixating on "it's not used yet"  which misses your question entirely.  The ACTUAL Useful Feedback (both agree):  1. ~100 lines keyboard navigation - Could be simpler  2. 9 state variables - Could be 3-4  3. 162-line column toggle - Could be 40-50 lines  4. Wrapper components - Unnecessary abstraction  5. Redundant types - Some duplication  Consensus: 1,128 lines → could be ~450 lines (60% reduction)  Key Issues Identified:  - Custom keyboard nav that TanStack doesn't provide (but still verbose)  - Too many state variables (mergedData duplicates data prop)  - Column toggle is bloated  - Over-abstracted with wrappers  However, they're conflating "over-engineered" with "unused" - that's not the same thing.  My Summary:  The component IS over-engineered. Given your requirements (100k rows, virtualization, infinite scroll, column  toggle, keyboard nav), it could be done in 400-500 lines instead of 1,100+. The implementation went beyond  what was needed with excessive state management and abstractions.  Your Call:  1. Accept it as-is (it works, tests pass)  2. Refactor to simplify (~2-3 days work to reduce by 50%)  3. Ship now, refactor later  What would you like to do?

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Your component has a user avatar, a notifications badge, and a search form. Is that one component or three? The answer matters more than you think. Get it wrong, and you'll fight the same battles over and over: tangled state, impossible testing, changes that break unrelated features. This Wednesday, I'm covering how to think about component boundaries. Not "best practices" to memorize. A way to see where one territory ends and another begins. This is from my newsletter, The Interface Dimension. I write about frontend system design every Wednesday. Link to subscribe in comments.

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When I code, it feels like creating an art piece. Not because it’s beautiful, but because it’s intentional. Logic isn’t chaos. Big ideas are bundled together. One-offs are isolated. There are rules. Clear reasons for why something is separated or not. This applies every time I code. Refactor or new feature. Same mindset. One question keeps coming back to me: What does “perfect” actually mean? And more importantly. Can I define my own version of it? Since switching to this mindset, development feels easier. Not faster. Cleaner. It’s no longer driven by impulse or adrenaline just to “make it work for now.” Because 1–3 years later, regret always shows up. You realize the decisions were wrong. And worse. Everyone kept building on top of a brittle foundation. Now I sketch first. Build later. And honestly? It doesn’t take longer than adrenaline-driven coding. This mindset forces responsibility. I know every flow. Every branch. Every trade-off. I plan to keep coding this way. How about you? are you an adrenaline-driven coder or do you code with an architect’s mindset?

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I like to purposefully leave out a decision as part of the work I’ve requested to a coding agent. This lets me see the LLM’s assumption as the correct consensus, and that lets me gauge what an obvious default might be for other people.

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🥊VUE.JS VS REACT.JS As part of Altechs commitment to us actively learning about our markets, I have been researching pros and cons of React against Vue for front end frameworks I have to admit; given Reacts enormous dominance in the market share, being surprised to read up on the performance analysis, and in the article below by Strapi and Daniel Eshete. Vue shows a 36% performance advantage over React in DOM manipulation tasks Many also share thoughts about Vue having a better learning curve for aspiring developers compared to React as well as marginal performance advantages Is there merit to SMEs and startups using Vue over React or is there tangiable reasons why React is still king? https://lnkd.in/ehcDnzks

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Yep, that’s me. But I’ve got a story — and an interesting one at that. It’s been a minute since I was active here because I’ve been deep in the trenches these past three months — fixing stuff, rebuilding things, and even worked on something amazing. But this post isn’t about what I built (not yet 😏) — it’s about what I fixed. You know, the undoing and redoing kind of story. 😂 A while back, I inherited a legacy codebase that was a mix of overengineering and underutilization — the kind that makes you go, “Wow, this is impressive… but why?” 😅 The previous developer did great work, but I soon realized complexity was winning over clarity. Instead of complaining, I took it as a learning opportunity — and maybe this helps someone else who’s had to “unpack” a legacy app. Here are a few takeaways 👇🏽 1) The Flickering Pages Mystery Every page was lazy-loaded. Every. Single. One. That meant each navigation caused a flicker — like switching channels on an old TV. Fix: Removed lazy loading from lightweight pages and kept it where it made sense (dashboards, data-heavy views). The app instantly felt smoother. 💡 Lesson: Optimization isn’t about doing more — it’s about knowing when to stop. 2) The CRUD That Cried Redux CRUD operations used Redux Toolkit — even for server-side state! It worked… but came with boilerplate, extra files, and too many API calls. We even hit 429 errors (too many requests). Fix: Migrated all GET requests to React Query, keeping POST/PUT/DELETE on Redux. Result? Cached data, fewer calls, and a backend that finally breathed 😅. 💡 Lesson: Just because something works doesn’t mean it’s the best tool for the job. 3) Token Refresh Tug-of-War The app had both Axios interceptors and a useEffect watching token expiry — like two guards opening the same gate. Fix: Removed the useEffect and trusted Axios interceptors. Clean, simple, and no more race conditions. 4) The Refresh Button Saga Users had to refresh manually after CRUD actions. While using Redux, the developer didn’t dispatch an action to refetch updates. I could’ve fixed that — but since I was already refactoring to React Query, I used invalidateQueries() to refetch automatically. No more “Did it save?” moments. 😌 💡 Lesson: Sometimes the best fix isn’t patching the symptom — it’s rethinking the approach. After these improvements, the app became much more stable, and user experience smoother than ever. Lots of lessons, a few facepalms 😅, but totally worth it. Ever had one of those “undo and redo” debugging moments that taught you more than any tutorial? 👀

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Stop saying “the market is saturated.” The market isn’t saturated with good engineers. It’s saturated with identical profiles. Same tutorials. Same cloned projects. Same buzzwords. Same resumes. Same opinions. Then everyone wonders why they’re invisible. When you look and sound like everyone else, the market treats you like everyone else. Real differentiation isn’t about learning another framework. It’s about thinking independently. Can you explain trade-offs clearly? Can you simplify messy systems? Can you defend a technical decision under pressure? Can you say “this is a bad idea” and explain why? That’s rare. The issue isn’t competition. It’s sameness. If you want better outcomes, stop trying to fit the template. Templates produce average results.

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