I'd assume that a developer should at least have a mental model of what DOM is and what it consists of, and that it can be queried and transformed by calling functions on JS objects that represent DOM nodes.

If the dev doesn't remember the names of actual functions (which is no fault, since that comes only with using them regularly), this would at least allow them to figure out what to search for on the Internet and how to use the results.

Is that a far fetched assumption? It's not really comparable to wanting a webdev to write some assembly code.

This isn’t about having a mental model of the DOM, it’s about whether you know a specific API.

Well, the original problem seemed to be that interviewees were not able to even find the API. If they had a mental model od DOM, this shouldn't be a problem.

They'd knew that there are nodes, can be queried from the document via JS and moved in relation to other nodes, so they could just google: "move dom node", or "query dom node" and put the pieces together via JS.

Look, yes this very well might be a case of lots of inexperienced people shooting ambitiously high (you don’t win unless you try, right?). And it might be true that most people interviewing for front end jobs don’t know squat. The story above just doesn’t actually demonstrate that.

My point here is that there are other explanations, we can’t jump to the conclusion that the cause is because most people lack a mental model of the DOM, that’s overlooking many possible reasons. Nothing about the state of developers is proven by this anecdote.

The interview specifically asked about an API that most people simply do not use. It’s not a surprise that a bunch of candidates backed out when they learned this, and it’s not a surprise that it was accidentally more challenging than the interviewer thought for those who stayed.

It doesn’t really matter that Google was allowed, it’s an assumption to think that it’s easy to come up with keywords and search terms for a API you haven’t used, during a job interview. I’ve interviewed a lot of people and watched a lot of people freeze during interviews, people that I know would figure it out quickly if I wasn’t interviewing them and they were relaxed. A job interview is a test, and the test administrator isn’t in a position to claim that it should have been relaxing or easy for the test-takers.

I generally don't do front end development professionally.

I do know how to manipulate the DOM without frameworks. Learned it over a weekend.

If I were interviewing for front end, I wouldn't recall the syntax immediately, but I would know what to google or be able to have enough of a conversation with the interviewer to show them I have the basic understanding of what is happening.

I do backend. A similar situation might be something like using curl to make individual http requests.

Yeah, we don't do that in real life and I forget some of the parameters and flags available, but if I acted like I had no idea how to use curl, I hope an interviewer would be very disappointed with that.

The issue here is precisely is about recalling the syntax of a low-level approach, not whether you understand it conceptually. It’s the difference between being asked to make a request using curl, and constructing an HTTP request buffer manually without the help of a wrapper to tool to do it for you. It’d be the same as going to an interview, and having the interviewer ask you to complete an HTTP request on the spot using telnet and a keyboard. Sure, you can look it up, but when you do that you’re showing the interviewer you don’t already know.

Many devs know very well how to manipulate the DOM using JQuery, or construct the page they want using React. Most people do not use the low-level pure JS API. Conceptually I totally know how to make things happen in the DOM. Using the JavaScript built-in API, not really. Yeah it’s easy to learn in a weekend, that doesn’t change the fact that the API is tedious, hardly used in practice by most people, and rarely if ever necessary to use for performance reasons.

You say "The issue here is precisely is about recalling the syntax of a low-level approach, not whether you understand it conceptually" and in a scenario where an interviewer blindsided a candidate with such expectations I would agree, but that's not how we got to this topic.

The parent says, "Candidates were using their home computers had access to any reference material. There was no hurry. They could look things up," which is the opposite of that.

It even says they let candidates know ahead of time that's what the interview was.

I mean come on, people are on here and Reddit all the time acting like it's reasonable to grind leetcode for months to get a job, but a Saturday afternoon of studying the basics for an open book quiz on Monday is too much?

I should have said it’s about “using” the low-level syntax, and not “recalling”. You’re right that the story superficially claimed the interview was open-book and didn’t require memorizing the low level API, but it did say specifically that JQuery was not allowed. It was definitely not about conceptually understanding DOM manipulation.

As an experienced front-end developer, I can see from the story I might have personally bowed out of the interview too, not because I can’t use JavaScript to manipulate the DOM, but because I don’t want to. If the job involves doing that, I might think twice about that job.

You might be over-estimating how easy an open-book quiz is. I don’t think I’d pass an interview that asked me to write only x86 assembly, or write HTTP requests manually, or use pure JS to do what I know how to do in JQuery or React, even if it’s an open book quiz.