GeneralTable-stakes
Refactoring
Restructuring existing code to make it cleaner or easier to maintain, without changing what it actually does.
Think of it like
Like renovating a house's internal wiring and layout without changing what it looks like from the street or how anyone uses it.
Junior or senior?
Junior sounds like
Attempts a large refactor as one risky, big-bang rewrite.
Senior sounds like
Can describe how they made a large refactor safe — tests first, incremental changes.
Ask them
“Tell me about a large refactor you did. How did you make sure you didn't break anything along the way?”