In a software engineer interview, what questions should you ask?

Often, we focus on acing an interview. However, we need to remember that the process is a two-way street. When the interviewer turns to you and says “do you have any questions for us?”, make sure you’re ready to get the information you need to make a good decision about your next career move.

If you spend the entire interview “proving” to the prospective employer that you’re worth hiring, you lose out on the opportunity to measure whether the company with which you’re interviewing is worth your time and effort. Making sure you ask questions of the employer serves a couple important purposes:

Generally I like to ask questions that both demonstrate that I myself have a good grasp on modern software development practices and also prod into whether the company employs these practices. In my experience, a company that does not employ modern dev practices is harder to work in: fewer “wins,” painful deployments, a culture of blaming, and less opportunity for growth.

This is a great question because it’s open-ended and doesn’t give the employer too many hints as to what you’re looking for. What I look for from this question is the following:

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