Technical Depth interview
Overview
The Technical Depth interview is a 60-minute behavioral interview used when hiring for Developer Experience roles. The questions are individualized to the position and to the candidate’s own expertise.
The goal is to find out whether the candidate has sufficient technical expertise for a given position or whether they can transfer knowledge from other experience.
As part of the Infrastructure interview process, the Technical Depth interview may be scheduled in the same stage with the 90-minute Technical Interview or the 60-minute Peer Interview.
Why we run it
Developer Experience work involves shaping workflows, processes, and tools in close collaboration with people working on their own product. It is an intersection of user experience, organizational psychology, and software engineering that aims to create systems that unblock and accelerate internal and community contributors in a positive way.
Most software engineering jobs are product or client focused instead. Developer Experience is still a niche skill and many strong candidates have not done this work under that name. The interview gives candidates room to show depth in what they have done, and to show how it applies to our work.
To see the kind of work the section does, read the Developer Experience overview and Custom Tooling and Dogfooding.
What it is not
The Technical Depth interview is not a whiteboard or coding exercise. That is covered in the Technical Interview.
For candidates
The interviewer will ask about your experience and past work, so you should already be well prepared. Before the interview:
- Reread your resume and pick the projects most relevant to the role.
- Refresh the key technical aspects of that work, such as the design, the trade-offs, and the tools involved. This lets the interviewer assess your expertise in more depth.
- If your experience is in a different area from the role, think about how you would apply it here.
For interviewers
The hiring manager usually suggests questions based on the candidate’s resume and prior interviews. You can ask other questions at your discretion when they help you assess the competency.
During the interview:
- Follow up on answers to find out how deep the candidate’s knowledge goes.
- Compare what you hear with what the role requires.
- Where the candidate’s experience differs from the role, assess whether they can transfer what they know.
Interviewers must be qualified. See the Infrastructure Platforms hiring process for the training and shadowing steps.
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