JavaScript Interview Question: Simple Yet Tricky

A “simple” JavaScript interview question that isn’t actually simple In a past interview, I was asked to implement a function similar to lodash.get(). The task sounded trivial. Given an object and a path like "a.b.c", return the value at that path. If the path doesn’t exist, return a default value. Example: myGet(obj, "user.profile.name", "default") At first glance it looks like a basic object traversal problem. Just split the string by ".", loop through the keys, and return the value. But then the interviewer started adding follow-ups. What if the path contains an array index? "users.1.name" What if the value exists but is null? Should we return null or the default value? What if the value is 0 or false? What if the object itself is null? What if the property exists but the value is undefined? Suddenly, a seemingly small problem started testing much deeper things: • understanding of JavaScript object traversal • difference between null, undefined, and missing properties • defensive coding • edge-case thinking • clean implementation under pressure It reminded me that good interview questions are not always about complex algorithms. Sometimes the best questions are the ones that expose how carefully someone thinks about everyday code. Many real production bugs don’t come from complicated logic. They come from tiny edge cases we didn’t think about. Curious to hear from other engineers here: What’s the most deceptively simple coding question you’ve seen in interviews? #javascript #interviews #softwareengineering #coding #algorithmicthinking

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