15 Questions Technical Hiring Managers Love To Ask In Interviews
Interviews are always stressful, but they’re less so when you know what to expect. Below, fifteen tech interviewers from a variety of companies share some favorite questions they like to ask, and their rationale for doing so.
1. When you don’t know the answer to something, what is the first thing that you do?
“This question tells us if a candidate is able to self-manage, and if they’re a fundamental problem solver. We want to hear that the candidate does the research and attempts to answer questions on their own before bringing the problem to their manager.” – Annette Stone, Senior Manager of Recruiting, Wayfair Engineering
2. If you could design your dream job, what would it look like?
“This is an interesting question to ask because there is no right answer, but I consider good answers to be ones that come across as authentic. I can tell when a candidate is telling me what they think I’d like to hear. Along with creating connection and allowing the candidate to be creative, this question also reveals bits and pieces about an individual’s long-term goals. Finally, I look for excitement in the candidate’s answer. If a candidate can’t get excited about their dream job, then how will they get excited about the job they are interviewing for?” – Talent Acquisition Manager at ONTRAPORT, Sara Hetyonk
3. Can you tell me about a side project you’ve worked on (outside of school or work) in the past year or so?
“Having a side project is a great indicator that the candidate loves to code and is passionate about writing software he or she is proud of. Furthermore, the code for a side project is often hosted on a public repository which I can browse to get another data point on the quality of code the candidate has written.” – Brian Pugh, Vice President of Engineering for Lucid Software
4. Tell me about your process of getting work done. When you get a new job or take on a new project, how do you go about doing it successfully?
“I believe that every person has a very specific methodology behind the way they work. I want to know what that is, because in doing so I get to hear what I call the 6 P’s of “A” Player passion, which are critical to understanding how the candidate will gel with the culture of the team, and whether their behavior will align with the hiring manager:
- Purpose – Why they do what they do
- Plan – How they do what they do
- Process – What they do to do what they do
- Persistence – What happens when what they do fails
- Persuasive communication – How they get others involved in helping what they do become successful
- Pride – How they celebrate what they do”
– Matt Doucette, Director of Global Talent Acquisition at Monster
5. How did you first learn to program and what was the first thing you built?
“I’m not trying to get at the skills level of a candidate with this question at all (I don’t think you can do that for engineers by just asking questions, have to watch them code). I’m trying to get a sense of how excited does this candidate get when talking about something that was presumably a big moment in their life and I’m just checking for basic communication and any red flags — this should be a pretty straightforward question for any engineer and gives them the best possible opportunity to show themselves in a good light.” – Harj Taggar, cofounder and CEO of Triplebyte
6. Describe a coworker’s working style.
“We ask candidates in project interviews to describe their coworkers’ working styles, what they respect most about them, and what they learned from them. Does this person think about others? Can they distinguish between the strengths different coworkers add to the team? Can they identify anything beyond straight knowledge or skills that makes someone great/difficult to work with? For example, “They knew python really well” (meh) – “They had a talent to explain complex coding concepts in a way that was easily understood by everyone” (better).
“Great candidates can describe their coworkers working style in a nuanced manner with robust emotional vocabulary. Good candidates just say generically “good things” about co-workers but can’t articulate details.” – Nate Smith, cofounder and CTO of Lever
7. Can you tell us about a time you failed?
“This question tells us about how a person overcame a failure, without trying to hide their mistakes. A lot of the work Marxent does in the AR/VR space is uncharted territory and our engineers and other teams go through a lot of trial and error processes. Employees who hide behind failures waste time and cause confusion. We highly value members who can admit to mistakes, learn from them, and move forward.” – Megan Gray, team operations manager at Marxent
8. Tell me how the Internet works.
“When candidates approach this question, some adopt a metaphor: “Well, it’s like a post office, where you send out a letter and eventually you’ll get a response back.” Other candidates will go super granular to discuss the IP address, DNS server, packets, and you can learn a lot based on where they start. Whichever way they go helps pivot the conversation and ask about specific areas of focus.” – Robert Gibbons, Chief Technology Officer of Datto
9. Which of your managers gets the best results and most value out of you and why?
“This particular question gives you a variety of information on the candidate on different levels. Based on their answer, we can identify their level of engagement and self-awareness. This also is a slightly unorthodox question purposefully because it causes them to think about the type of leadership that they respect, admire and want to follow. Subconsciously, they have specific managers that motivate them in a way that pushes them to achieve more.
“Their answer will tell us what motivates them, as a technical professional. What pushes them beyond their current technical scope to want to learn and achieve more? We can determine if their preferred leadership style matches the kind of leadership that we embody. It also gives us insight into whether they have the self-awareness to be able to identify the characteristics of another individual that affect them in a positive way.” – Margaret Freel, Recruiter, TechSmith
10. Tell me about some of the more interesting or difficult problems you’ve been working on the past few years.
“It reverses the power dynamic; they’re in control, not me. They’re the expert on what they’ve worked on, I’m not. There’s no wrong answer. So that relaxes them and is a great way to start an interview and make them feel comfortable. When they explain what they’ve been working on, I’m able to ask for more details about specific things as they are answering. So, I don’t let them just give high-level general answers, I dig deeper on various topics they mention. That helps me understand exactly how deep their knowledge goes in the things they’ve been working on.” – Tim Julien, Vice President of Engineering at Bonobos
11. If I were to ask your last set of coworkers to describe you, what do you think they’d say?
“It forces the candidate to think through the lens of those they work with, which can provide interesting insights about the candidate’s working style. Answers range from “dependable” to “opinionated”, and often provide a good opening to ask follow-up questions around why they believe their coworkers would hold that opinion.” – Michael Boufford, VP of Engineering at Greenhouse
12. Have you made an account on our website and what do you think can be improved about the process?
“We love to ask this because it’s a great test of two things: 1) does the interviewee show interest in our company and 2) can the interviewee think critically about product, not just as a user but as a builder. It’s especially useful for smaller startups who need passionate early team members and you’d be astounded at how often an interviewee hasn’t even taken the time to try out the product!” – Kenn Peters, Director of People at Vettery
13. Why do you get up in the morning?
“We’re a young and rapidly growing team within a huge company, so we think of ourselves as a “startup in the enterprise” with the way we hire talent. This questions gives us a chance to see how well the candidates’ passions align with their career goals, which is important when you’re developing the collaborative and winning culture found in startup type environments.” Miguel Quiroga, Head of Digital at Verizon Fios
14. Why are you taking the time to talk to me (recruiter, employer, etc.) today?
“[Tech workers] are the most sought-after professionals. The ones that are strong and most companies want to hire get dozens of reach-outs daily. This means they have their choice of employer and are very careful about picking who they work for. We put a lot of effort into making Prezi an inspiring place to work, and it is important that in addition to checking the boxes of “must haves” we also align their needs and motivations with our offerings.” – Emoke Starr, Head of HR at Prezi
15. What’s the one thing we haven’t asked you about that you want to make sure we know?
“This question gives the candidate an opportunity to tell us exactly why they want the job, not just why they’re qualified. In life, we are selling our ideas, projects, selves, etc., and it’s important to have that skill at any level of the company, in any position – even the most technical ones. I want to hire people who would be passionate, excited and committed to work at ReadyTalk, so this question helps me weed out the people (even if they’re highly skilled) who just want a job.” – Courtney Graham, senior director of human resources, ReadyTalk
