“So, do you have any questions for me?”

In some ways, this is the worst part of the interview. You’ve avoided stumbling over the introductions, you feel good about your solutions to the technical questions. Now the interviewer wants to get to know you better.

Make it Personal

People love talking about themselves. Added bonus of getting to know your interviewer better.

• What other companies were you considering when you came here? Why did you pick this company?
• What position were you hired into? How has your role changed?
• How have mentors and managers helped you work towards your long-term goals?

General Tech

• What stack do you work with? What development tools does your team favor?
• What are policies around allowing employees to work on external projects (open source, personal, etc)?
• What is the code review process?
• Does the company contributes to open-source? In what way?
• What are the engineering teams? How do teams tend to be organized (by job role, by project, …)?

Company

• What growing pains do you see the company struggling with?
• In what ways has the product pivoted?
• How does the company balance customer feedback, business goals, and engineering objectives?
• What is the balance of engineering and business perspectives in the company’s leadership?
• What do you see the company struggling with in the next few years?

But Avoid Asking…

• How you did during the interview. Your recruiter will let you know, after your interviewer reviews the call.
• Details about pay, their personal goals, and relationships with people at work. The interview is not the right time to delve into how good or bad their working relationship with their manager is.
• Pressuring them to bad-mouth prior or current employers. Likewise, avoid doing the same when describing your experiences.

Wrapping Up

The closing is their last impression of you; they should hang up feeling positive about the conversation. If they gave you feedback while solving the coding questions, thank them for the advice. Before ending the call, thank them for their time.

For more interview tips, I wrote about what I’ve learned in “Lessons from 49 interviews at 21 companies.”