REST API
Also written as RESTful
A common style for designing web APIs around standard HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and resource URLs.
Think of it like
Like a standardized menu format every restaurant uses — appetizers, mains, desserts — so any customer instantly knows how to order.
Junior or senior?
Junior sounds like
Says they 'built a REST API' with no further detail.
Senior sounds like
Can name a REST design decision they'd make differently if starting that project over.
Ask them
“What's a REST API design decision you'd make differently if you were starting that project over?”
Sounds like real experience
Names a specific design tradeoff — a versioning scheme, an error-handling convention, a resource-modeling decision — and what they'd change and why.
Probe further if
Describes REST only as 'using GET and POST to call an API' without describing a single design decision they made about how endpoints, errors, or versioning should work.