For interviewing for the remote jobs specifically, as an interviewer I recommend the following: Do everything you can to be in the most quiet environment possible. Do everything that you can to have the best internet connection possible. Got roommates? Ask them to not be home. Have a couple pandora streams going around the house for ambience? Shut them off, they're a waste of bandwidth. Next, you may be asked to share your screen at some point. Clear everything remotely offensive or even noteworthy. Don't have a model posing on a sports car as your background image, don't have a bunch of links to porn sites or torrent sites or whatever in your favorites bar on your browser, and no hugely cluttered messes of files with crazy file names, etc. Last, kill all the distractions: shut off your phone, smart watch, and kill all of the background IM notifications on your computer.

Good luck!

* Basic coding ability -- maybe a couple simple whiteboard questions, or walk through some code

* Able to learn things -- talking about past projects, interesting things they've learned, ask them to explain their past work to me (doesn't have to be tech)

* Able to ask decent questions -- Unfortunately I don't have a good standard for this, but generally I like candidates that can form a straightforward question about the role, the company, the tech stack, really anything.

Basically for a junior position, I am not looking for someone who will deliver a lot of value on day 1. Instead I am looking for someone who is curious, learns quickly, and can learn the necessary skills to deliver value later. A quick learner will be great in a year, a slow learner or someone who doesn't care to learn will not.

Good luck!

Even senior positions I've applied for don't ask these questions all the time. I've gotten them maybe 25% of the time overall, with the majority at hip startups (e.g Whisper), not big companies (e.g. Clearchannel, CAA).

Then look at them in the eyes and let them speak in return.

And so on and so forth.

Good luck!