Anticipate Questions to Ace Your Technical Interview

Even if you have years of hands-on experience and an extensive portfolio of coding samples, you may need to pass a technical interview before an IT manager will offer you a software development, engineering or programming assignment.

The good news is if you’ve made it this far in the process, you’ve probably got a good shot at a plum contract position as long as you anticipate the interviewer’s questions and prepare to answer them.

Most technical interviews center on skills, programs and development methodologies germane to the assignment. So start by reviewing the job description, scope of work and conferring with your recruiter to make sure you understand the must-have technical requirements, your key responsibilities and the company’s technical stack.

Hiring managers and recruiters tend to list the priority requirements at the top of the job description, followed by preferred or “extra credit” skills, so look there first. And your recruiter should be able to tell you whether you’ll be doing a coding test, whiteboard session or server set up, who you’ll be interviewing with, and the topics they want to cover. He or she should also know how long the interview will last and whether the company typically asks brainteasers or algorithm questions.

The Internet and certification exams are additional sources of technical interview questions for specific programs and technologies. Having off-the-record conversations with current or previous employees and searching for technical questions on Glassdoor or GitHub may yield a bounty of company-specific questions.

Most people don’t like surprises, especially during an interview. Anticipating the hiring manager’s technical questions is the first step in acing your technical interview.