10 Best Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Software Engineer

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November 18, 2021 Career

Want to hire the best software engineer for your startup and wonder how to conduct the interview efficiently? Check the following 10 questions to succeed!

Recruiting a software engineer is an experience that should be treated attentively and studiedly. A talented and skillful software engineer will support your startup in growing. On the other hand, a specialist that possesses no relevant skills or an appropriate work ethic can stall your growth.

That is why it is a must for a startup owner/recruiter to figure out the best questions to ask before you hire a software engineer. The right queries will help you to reveal whether a world-class engineering candidate will be a great culture fit as well as a powerful problem solver. Let’s start!

Wondering where to find the best development company for your engineering startup? Check B2B engineering marketplaces, such as Engre.co.

What are your expectations from this role?

Your task is to discover the reasons a candidate is searching for a novel job opportunity and why they want to join your startup. What things can they share with you regarding your startup? Startup owners should get to know whether they are aware of the startup’s corporate culture/values, and so on.

Note that in case a candidate knows zero about you and they are just searching for a novel job because of financial needs, it will be a wrong hire. Your goal is to ensure that a candidate’s values correspond to yours and that they will respect/follows your mission.

A good software engineer should admire your startup’s targets, values and be willing to support you in gaining them.

What is the most serious solution you’ve worked on?

This query comes in handy to realize the set of the candidate’s skills and the way they implemented them in a challenging project. It will enable you to move beyond the CV and accentuate the qualifications and personal contributions they possess.

Have you ever succeeded in the solutions like ours?

In case a software engineer has been in the engineering industry for a long time, they should be willing as well as capable to demo to you a decent amount of their previous achievements. Ask them in what companies they have worked specifically in your niche and what was gained.

Startup owners should pay special attention to the solutions similar to the one you are searching to finalize and a couple of arguments that they have worked with companies similar to yours in terms of business/industry focus.

What are the greatest mistakes you have ever made and their outcome?

Any software engineering specialist that loves engineering and completed a bunch of strong business projects has made a couple of mistakes. It can occur that they designed certain software but it failed. Well, it doesn’t mean that an engineer is bad. However, a good software engineer learns significant lessons from such mistakes.

While interviewing, startup owners should make efforts to reveal what mistakes a candidate performed and how it helped them to improve.

The question enables you to understand their work ethic, their readiness to accept mistakes and study, and what they are doing to optimize their qualifications while designing solutions.

What was the last solution when you applied JavaScript/Python/Java/etc.?

Imagine the case that you require hiring a DevOps engineer as your startup has to optimize its software. The key languages such engineering specialists traditionally implement are considered JavaScript, Python, and C/C++.

The point is that those languages regularly receive updates. For instance, the latest update for Python is Version 3.8. Because of constant updates for languages, for a startup, it is a must to understand how recent a software engineer’s experience is. Moreover, you should discover whether a candidate continues learning about the implementation of a certain programming language as well as various other tools.

What is the most significant when it comes to monitoring a code of your team member?

Frankly speaking, there doesn’t exist the correct answer to this query. However, it provides an interviewer with insight into a candidate’s thought processes regarding coding. What is a must when writing code? Do they accentuate a combo of simplicity and functionality? Do they focus on protection when designing code?

What was your action plan when you had to solve an issue?

This query enables a software engineering candidate to describe the way they deal with work challenges as well as their strategy to cope with them. It will demonstrate whether they possess the skills to manage stress and utilize their problem-solving skills to come with a way out.

Well, the issue can’t be connected with designing software. As an option, it can refer to working within a team. For instance, a candidate can tell you how they experienced a certain conflict with another engineer during a brainstorming session regarding how to adequately resolve a case and how they arrived at a solution.

This will brightly demonstrate their teamwork skills when a disagreement happens.

Do you prefer working alone or in tandem with colleagues?

Again, there is no right commentary to this question. Everything depends on what type of software engineer you are searching for. Some startups may require independent professionals that like working alone. On the contrary, they may need a team player.

How do you update your skills?

An ideal software engineer requires up-to-date regarding innovations that happen in the engineering industry and keep their qualifications fresh for novel advancements.

How do you balance work and private life?

An interviewer will get a great chance to reveal the way a software engineering candidate prioritizes. A company doesn’t intend to discover secrets of their private life or how they manage work. Here, they desire to discover is what is of key priority for them. An ideal candidate completes work within deadlines and always finds time for their nearest and dearest. They realize the significance of work/life balance and the way to follow time-management that is a trend nowadays.