35 questions you should ask while interviewing

At the end of leading a software engineering technical interview I will usually ask: “Do you have any questions for us?”

Many engineers will respond with “No, not really...” Or a single offhand question like: “Do y’all do sprints?”

What a loss of a massive opportunity to learn more about a company, and to stand out by asking informed, thoughtful questions during an interview! 😅

You can learn so much by asking good questions. 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️

Interviewing is a two way street. You need to figure out if you are a good fit for the company, just as much as they do.

They will help you learn the ins-and-outs of a company, their culture, what they value, and what their ideal hire looks like. 🤝

Here are some questions I like to ask 👇

Quick pro-tip : Don’t ask things you could easily find with a quick Google search.

Engineering focused questions

• What types of engineering problems are you facing these days?

• What is your team’s biggest current challenge?

• What do you see as the engineering team’s role in the company?

• What does a typical day in the life of an engineer look like?

• How does the handoff between frontend and backend engineers work?

Product-focused questions

• What is one of your favorite products or apps?

• How do product, design and engineering collaborate to take an project from idea to deployment?

• How much of a say do engineers have into the design/ux of products?

• Is this a product-focused company or a service-based business?

• How do you develop your product roadmap?

Performance focused questions

• If I were to get this position, how would my performance be measured?

• If I exceeded the expectations for this role in 6 months, where would you see me going from there?

• What qualities will I need to have to be successful in this position?

• How would you describe a 10x employee if one existed?

• Would my compensation be tied to performance or mostly title and responsibilities?

Professional/Career development questions

• How do you ensure the success of new employees through your onboarding process?

• What are the learning / career development opportunities available to your employees?

• Are there opportunities to switch roles internally inside the company down the road? Or do you tend to hire externally?

• Where have previous successful employees in this position progressed to?

Work culture questions

• Everyone likes to talk about work/life balance - what is your take on it?

• Have you ever seen your CEO or other leaders admit when they were wrong, own it, and make changes?

• What are the company’s top 3-5 values for their employees?

• Would you consider your company to be “remote first / friendly”? What does that look like?

• How would you describe the work environment here—is the work typically more collaborative or more independent?

Product market fit / unique value proposition

• What makes you better than all your competitors?

• What problem are you solving that no one else is? (eg. your unique value proposition)

• Where do you see the company growing towards in two to three years?

• What can you tell me about your new products or plans for growth?

• Who is one of your biggest competitors in the field and what is something they do better than you?

Financial health of the company questions

• What is your net revenue retention rate?

• What is the company’s burn rate / runway – eg. how long they can operate without running out of cash?

• How much money has your company raised?

• When do you expect the company to be profitable if they aren’t already?

Next steps questions

• If this interview went well, what are the next steps in the interview process?

• Is there anything else I can provide you with that would be helpful?

Pro tip: Don’t ask all of these in one interview 🤣 Be respectful of your interviewer’s time. Ask the ones you really care about. 🤝

Remember to do really through research on a company and don’t ask anything that could be found online.

Some of these questions will be better to ask fellow software engineers, some are more hiring manager focused, and some would be more business leader focused. You should sprinkle them throughout your various interviews and ask the appropriate people.

Hopefully these got your wheels turning, and this can serve as a good reference for you to come back to when you need to learn more about a specific area of the company.

Also lastly, I can’t stress interview prep enough!

Interview prep both technically and specifically focused on the company will pay huge dividends! Read my story here of I landed a position at a hyper growth company without ever officially interviewing before. 😅

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I’d love to hear your favorite questions to ask during an interview to learn about that company.

Reply and let me know – I read every email reply 🤝

Thanks to sw-yx for the inspiration for some of these.

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Until next week 👇🏼

Catch me daily on LinkedIn and Twitter, where I talk about everything software engineering, startups, and growing in your engineering soft skills.