React Native competence is really three skills stacked: solid React, mobile platform judgment, and the bridge between them. These questions weight the mobile-specific layers — the new architecture, native integration, and store operations — where web-React developers who claim RN experience come up short.
What a strong answer covers
The legacy async serialized bridge versus JSI's direct synchronous host-object interface, Fabric's concurrent-capable rendering, TurboModules' lazy typed native modules, and codegen. They should articulate the practical wins — less bridge congestion, synchronous layout reads — and migration realities, not just recite architecture names.
What a strong answer covers
Testing release builds (dev mode lies), profiling JS thread versus UI thread frame rates, moving animations to the native driver or Reanimated worklets, list virtualization checks, image sizing, and Hermes profiling. The dev-build caveat and the two-thread framing are the credibility markers.
What a strong answer covers
When a needed SDK or platform API has no maintained wrapper — payments, hardware, background services. Mechanics: TurboModule spec with codegen, Kotlin and Swift implementations, threading rules for callbacks, packaging. Candidates who have only consumed libraries will go vague here — this question finds them.
What a strong answer covers
A current answer: Expo with EAS and config plugins now covers most apps including custom native code, prebuild bridging the gap; bare for unusual native demands or existing native codebases. Dated 'Expo is too limiting' reflexes suggest stale experience — the reasoning matters more than the pick.
What a strong answer covers
Virtualization fundamentals, keyExtractor and stable renderItem, getItemLayout for fixed heights, windowing parameters, memoized rows — plus awareness of FlashList-style recycling alternatives and measuring before and after. List jank is the most common RN complaint; a rehearsed playbook is a good sign.
What a strong answer covers
React Navigation with typed routes, nested navigators kept shallow deliberately, linking configuration for deep links and universal links, auth flows via conditional navigator trees rather than imperative resets, and state persistence decisions. Expo Router or file-based alternatives acknowledged shows currency.
What a strong answer covers
Platform-specific files and Platform.select for behavior, but more importantly design divergence: navigation gestures, shadows versus elevation, safe areas, keyboard handling, permission flows. Isolating divergence in a platform layer rather than sprinkling conditionals is the architecture answer.
What a strong answer covers
JS-and-asset updates via EAS Update or CodePush-style tooling, native changes requiring store releases, runtime-version compatibility discipline, staged rollouts with rollback, and the policy line: bug fixes yes, substantial behavior changes through review. The native-versus-JS boundary is the technical core of the answer.
What a strong answer covers
Local persistence choices (MMKV, SQLite, WatermelonDB by need), server-cache libraries with persistence, queued mutations with conflict strategy, connectivity awareness, and honest scoping — offline-first is expensive and should match product need. Recognizing sync conflicts as the hard part is the depth marker.
What a strong answer covers
Crash reporting with source maps for symbolicated JS stacks, native crash capture, breadcrumbs, and release-health metrics gating rollouts. The production-only debugging story: reproducing via release builds, device farms, logging hypotheses — process over luck.
What a strong answer covers
Native process launch, root activity/view controller hosting the RN container, bundle load (Hermes bytecode), JS runtime boot, React tree render committed to native views via Fabric. Granularity here directly measures how far beyond JavaScript their debugging can reach when startup or native issues hit.
What a strong answer covers
Team skills as the dominant factor, code-sharing with existing React/web investment favoring RN, heavy platform integration or graphics favoring native, and a fair characterization of Flutter rather than dismissal. Balanced reasoning under commercial constraints is the actual test.
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Try the interview question generator →Ask the architecture, native-module, and app-launch questions early. Genuine RN developers talk threads, bridges, and release builds unprompted; web-only candidates stay in component and hook vocabulary. React skill still counts — but price the mobile ramp honestly.
In 2026, yes for most product work — EAS-era Expo is the mainstream path. Reserve the requirement for bare-workflow and custom-native-module experience for roles that genuinely need SDK integration or brownfield native apps.
A performance-review exercise: give them a small app with a janky list and a slow screen transition, on a real or emulated mid-range device, and ask for diagnosis and fixes. It exercises profiling, list tuning, and the two-thread model in under an hour.
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