<story><title>Ask HN: What are good software architecture interview questions?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>_d8fd</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Can you talk about a project you experienced that went very badly&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to offer a spin on this.&lt;p&gt;In my experience, asking a question that demands one to recall specific details about a painful event in an interview, which is typically a stressful situation, may produce poor results.&lt;p&gt;What do you think about giving the candidate an opportunity to get advance notice of that you&amp;#x27;ll be asking that question, in an interview, and ask them to prepare three to five bullet points to discuss?  Whether the candidate sends the bullet points back to you before the interview, or just brings them to the interview, is beyond the scope of what I&amp;#x27;m proposing.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s say your trying to assess a 3 things:&lt;p&gt;* Has Architect been through the meat grinder at all?  Bullet points with little depth log a warning, as there has been plenty of time to prepare a thoughtful answer.&lt;p&gt;* Does Architect talk about failure in a calm and composed manner?  Bullet points give ability to ability to recall challenges before stress of interview sets in.&lt;p&gt;Does Architect trash talk former employer or coworkers?  The stress of interview can erode one&amp;#x27;s asshole filter, and cause them to be a bit of the jerk they&amp;#x27;ve worked really hard to not be (speaking a bit for myself here).&lt;p&gt;To wrap this up, I like interview questions that are functional with minimal side effects, meaning the person is given every opportunity to provide the answer you are looking without external pressure or distraction.  If you want to see how a person handles stress, give them a situation that is stressful in a way it&amp;#x27;d be on the job, perhaps leading with &amp;quot;apologies in advance for the following situation, which is intentionally stressful...&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>beat</author><text>Not so much a question as an approach, but...&lt;p&gt;When interviewing senior people, I like to get them going on war stories. &amp;quot;Can you talk about a project you experienced that went very badly?&amp;quot; is a good one. It&amp;#x27;s not necessarily that &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; went badly, but we&amp;#x27;ve all been on death marches before (and I absolutely would not hire an architect who&amp;#x27;s never done a death march!).&lt;p&gt;The beauty of this is you can find out how they react to impossible demands and pressures. What they&amp;#x27;re proud of accomplishing in dire circumstances. Possibly what they&amp;#x27;re ashamed or embarrassed about, or mistakes&amp;#x2F;lessons learned (if they&amp;#x27;re that bold). You can learn a &lt;i&gt;ton&lt;/i&gt; about how they talk about their colleagues! Are they full of praise, or contempt? Do they find someone to blame, or talk about how someone else saved their asses? You can also learn a lot about their actual approach to technical decisions - their taste, for lack of a better word.&lt;p&gt;You can ask probing questions here, but the important part is to get them speaking in an unguarded way. Nobody makes it to the architect level in this field without at least kind of loving the job. Find out what they love. Find out what they hate. Find out what they regret. Find out any strong technical biases they have, and why. But most of all, find out how they play with others. Because the architect&amp;#x27;s job isn&amp;#x27;t just to design, but to &lt;i&gt;communicate&lt;/i&gt;. You don&amp;#x27;t just want a technical expert. You want someone that can value and respect the rest of the team, or they&amp;#x27;re just going to cause problems.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikehollinger</author><text>I actually ask &amp;quot;Tell me about a project that went well for you. What was it, what was your role, and what was the final outcome?&amp;quot; I ask follow-ups, and generally let the interviewee get comfortable, since it&amp;#x27;s a low-pressure question. However, as a follow-up, I usually ask &amp;quot;Tell me about a project that -didn&amp;#x27;t- go so well. Same questions, and what&amp;#x27;d you take away from the experience?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;People tend to slide into a comfort zone and open up a bit about their successes. They then -tend- to stay open and offer up useful insights into their past behaviors under pressure. I&amp;#x27;ve found that it helps to ask the &amp;quot;success&amp;quot; question first, then ask the &amp;quot;failure&amp;quot; question second, rather than directly asking about someone&amp;#x27;s failures.&lt;p&gt;As an aside, the technique outlined above is something taken from &amp;quot;Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,&amp;quot; [1] and is a useful read to recognize situations where someone might be using certain techniques to influence the outcome of a situation. :-) Also - note that the general prompt above expects someone to answer in the &amp;quot;STAR&amp;quot; technique. [2]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;gp&amp;#x2F;product&amp;#x2F;B002BD2UUC&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;gp&amp;#x2F;product&amp;#x2F;B002BD2UUC&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;careerservices.wayne.edu&amp;#x2F;behavioralinterviewinfo.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;careerservices.wayne.edu&amp;#x2F;behavioralinterviewinfo.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What are good software architecture interview questions?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>_d8fd</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Can you talk about a project you experienced that went very badly&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to offer a spin on this.&lt;p&gt;In my experience, asking a question that demands one to recall specific details about a painful event in an interview, which is typically a stressful situation, may produce poor results.&lt;p&gt;What do you think about giving the candidate an opportunity to get advance notice of that you&amp;#x27;ll be asking that question, in an interview, and ask them to prepare three to five bullet points to discuss?  Whether the candidate sends the bullet points back to you before the interview, or just brings them to the interview, is beyond the scope of what I&amp;#x27;m proposing.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s say your trying to assess a 3 things:&lt;p&gt;* Has Architect been through the meat grinder at all?  Bullet points with little depth log a warning, as there has been plenty of time to prepare a thoughtful answer.&lt;p&gt;* Does Architect talk about failure in a calm and composed manner?  Bullet points give ability to ability to recall challenges before stress of interview sets in.&lt;p&gt;Does Architect trash talk former employer or coworkers?  The stress of interview can erode one&amp;#x27;s asshole filter, and cause them to be a bit of the jerk they&amp;#x27;ve worked really hard to not be (speaking a bit for myself here).&lt;p&gt;To wrap this up, I like interview questions that are functional with minimal side effects, meaning the person is given every opportunity to provide the answer you are looking without external pressure or distraction.  If you want to see how a person handles stress, give them a situation that is stressful in a way it&amp;#x27;d be on the job, perhaps leading with &amp;quot;apologies in advance for the following situation, which is intentionally stressful...&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>beat</author><text>Not so much a question as an approach, but...&lt;p&gt;When interviewing senior people, I like to get them going on war stories. &amp;quot;Can you talk about a project you experienced that went very badly?&amp;quot; is a good one. It&amp;#x27;s not necessarily that &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; went badly, but we&amp;#x27;ve all been on death marches before (and I absolutely would not hire an architect who&amp;#x27;s never done a death march!).&lt;p&gt;The beauty of this is you can find out how they react to impossible demands and pressures. What they&amp;#x27;re proud of accomplishing in dire circumstances. Possibly what they&amp;#x27;re ashamed or embarrassed about, or mistakes&amp;#x2F;lessons learned (if they&amp;#x27;re that bold). You can learn a &lt;i&gt;ton&lt;/i&gt; about how they talk about their colleagues! Are they full of praise, or contempt? Do they find someone to blame, or talk about how someone else saved their asses? You can also learn a lot about their actual approach to technical decisions - their taste, for lack of a better word.&lt;p&gt;You can ask probing questions here, but the important part is to get them speaking in an unguarded way. Nobody makes it to the architect level in this field without at least kind of loving the job. Find out what they love. Find out what they hate. Find out what they regret. Find out any strong technical biases they have, and why. But most of all, find out how they play with others. Because the architect&amp;#x27;s job isn&amp;#x27;t just to design, but to &lt;i&gt;communicate&lt;/i&gt;. You don&amp;#x27;t just want a technical expert. You want someone that can value and respect the rest of the team, or they&amp;#x27;re just going to cause problems.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>beat</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m after maximal side effects here. I&amp;#x27;m not trying to figure out what they know. I&amp;#x27;m trying to figure out who they are. That happens when they&amp;#x27;re unguarded.&lt;p&gt;Now, I do my level best to make interviews unstressful. I don&amp;#x27;t think a stressed candidate is going to do their best, or be their best. They&amp;#x27;re going to be second-guessing their answers.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the point of war stories. Every experienced candidate has them. We&amp;#x27;ve all done memorable things in our career, both good and bad. If it sticks with you, the details aren&amp;#x27;t what matter.&lt;p&gt;edit: This goes both ways. I expect the war stories to be an exchange, a patter. They should be learning about me and my co-interviewers as well. And, as someone who gets interviewed, if I feel the interview is completely one-sided and not revealing anything about potential colleagues and the working environment, I&amp;#x27;m going to hesitate.</text></comment>