Show production awareness: "I disable WP-Cron and use a real server cron hitting wp-cron.php every minute. This ensures tasks run on time regardless of traffic. For heavy background processing, I use Action Scheduler."
WP-Cron is triggered by page visits, not by the system clock. On each request, WordPress checks if any scheduled events are due and runs them. Limitations: events do not fire if there is no traffic, multiple near-simultaneous visitors can trigger the same event, and cron tasks add latency to the triggering request. Workarounds: disable WP-Cron in wp-config (DISABLE_WP_CRON) and set up a real server cron that hits wp-cron.php at regular intervals. For heavy tasks: use Action Scheduler (used by WooCommerce) which queues jobs in the database and processes them in batches. Strong candidates mention: wp_schedule_event for recurring tasks, wp_schedule_single_event for one-off tasks, and the importance of checking if an event is already scheduled before adding it.
Tests understanding of WordPress internals. Candidates who do not know WP-Cron is visitor-triggered will schedule critical tasks that silently fail on low-traffic sites. Those who know to use a real cron and Action Scheduler demonstrate production readiness.