10 questions to make on a tech interview

mparramon (25)in #money • 7 years ago (edited)

In a job interview the employer aims to get to know the candidate and assess his fit for the position. Your goal would be to show that you're the person that they're looking for, by getting key insights about the company, and exposing how your abilities and strengths play into them. Here are 10 questions to guide you on the process, focused on tech companies, and specially startups.

Development:

1. What is the company's tech stack? APIs, databases, programming languages, frameworks, servers, third party services like Intercom or New Relic. You can use this question to expand on your working experience by talking about similar stacks you've worked it in other companies or personal projects.

2. What is your team structure, and where will I fit on it? This question will let the interviewer introduce who you will be working with, and also give you a glimpse on your day to day work interactions. It will also help them envision you as part of the company.

3. What is the normal course that a feature goes through? Here you'll want to know about their design process, implementation flow, whether they do testing and/or QA, which environments do they have (canary, staging, etc). You can also delve on Joel Spolsky's 12 questions for this one.

4. What is your biggest current issue, and how can I help on improving it? This will help the interviewer see how your skills fit to help the company, and encourage them to envision you working at the position.

Company:

5. What's the company history? How did it started, information about the founders, and the development progress, like prototypes, redesigns, or previous pivots.

6. What's the company roadmap? It's important to know where the company is heading, what are the new features coming in the pipeline, what are the plans for growing the team, whether it is expanding to new markets, etc.

7. What's your customer? B2C, B2B, user growth numbers (or at least trends), ARPU… this could give you a hint of the company's revenue, and ties well with the next question

8. What's the company's investment status? It's very different to work in a bootstrapped company focused on "sensible" growth, than in one with a recent investment round, whose stakeholders are looking for results in the near or middle term. Be sure to get some information about runaway and stocks, if possible.

Closing/next steps:

9. What have you enjoyed most about working here? This question lets the interviewer connect with you on a more personal level, sharing their feelings about working with the company. Their answer will give you unique insights into the job satisfaction and working environment of the company

10. What is the next step? Finally, close with this essential last question, which shows your interest for the position, and opens the conversation one step forward to your hiring.

Of course, you don't have to ask all these questions, as surely some of them will be answered throughout the course of the interview. Remember to thank the interviewer, and express your liking of the company and satisfaction with the talk. You can also follow up with a thank you note via email, to give them an easy way to contact you and continue with the process.

Any questions I've missed? Comments about your experiences in interviews while following this guide, or a similar one? I'll be glad to hear from you on the comments section, or Twitter.

#technology #programming #job #software