Evaluation Instructions

Introduction

The purpose of this exercise is to evaluate your approach to creating a very simple backend application using the language of your choice. We expect you to spend a couple of hours or less to complete this, and it will be used to evaluate how you approach a technical task.

The diagram below illustrates what it is that you will need to build. In simple terms, we expect you to build a very simple application that connects to a static XML API and transforms it to a JSON response. There are more detailed instructions provided below.

Component Overview

Sequence

  1. Read these instrucitons carefully.
  2. Develop a simple API (see Evaluation Details)
  3. Publish your code to a source repository that we can access
  4. Provide us with a link to this code at least a day before you come to see us

Evaluation details

  • Create an application using any libraries you wish

  • When a request is received by the application, make another request to the existing static backend xml service - see curl examples below.

    curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MiddlewareNewZealand/evaluation-instructions/main/xml-api/1.xml
    curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MiddlewareNewZealand/evaluation-instructions/main/xml-api/2.xml
  • Transform the backend xml response into a json format that matches the supplied OpenAPI specification and return it to the client

  • Ensure that the application code handles errors from the xml service appropriately

  • Ensure that the application code is tested appropriately

Things to consider

When you come to see us you will need to consider the following so that we can chat about what you have done.

  • You will need to tell us how you went about creating your application and why you created it in the way that you did
  • Think about how you would deploy the application into a production environment
  • Think about how your application is documented - remember that your audience (us) are technical and should be able to run your code

Resources