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The best engineering interview question I’ve ever gotten, Part 1

The best engineering interview question I’ve ever gotten, Part 1
.
It’s been a while since I was on the receiving end of a software engineering
interview. But I still remember my favorite interview question. It was at MemSQL circa 2013.
(They haven’t even kept their name,
so I assume they’re not still relying on this specific interview question.
I don’t feel bad for revealing it. It’s a great story that I tell people a lot;
I’ve just never blogged it before.)

Read in full here:

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OvermindDL1

OvermindDL1

That’s similar to the “thought process” questions I use to try to figure out how someone thinks in interviews as well, they are super useful.

finner

finner

A few years ago I started asking just one question:

Can you describe the architecture of a recent project you worked on?

Usually we’d then start a discussion about deployment pipelines, tech stacks, methodologies and the like used. I haven’t done many interviews and I hate trying to corner people into sneaky tech corners. It makes me uncomfortable :rofl: . I just want to know if the person understands the big picture when they are working on isolated pieces and it gives me a good sense of their communication/ “presentation” skills.

OvermindDL1

OvermindDL1

Very much agree on all that!

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