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Engineer Interview Format

1. Introduction (2 minutes)

Decision Maker - Welcome candidate, introduce yourself: Full name, job title, current project, how long you have worked at TDS & then introduce the other interviewer so they can introduce themselves.

  1. House keeping:
  2. If you have a laptop explain reason.
  3. Interview is planned for 1 hour. If candidate needs a break (bathroom / get a drink then that's fine).
  4. Time for questions at the end but if anything comes up feel free to ask.
  5. Info about the candidate and their current job.
  6. Overview of The Data Shed and the role we are recruiting for.
  7. Competency questions: tech opinions, processes.
  8. Cultural fit questions.
  9. Questions from the candidate.
  10. Next Steps.

2. Candidate Info (8 minutes)

  • Can you give us a brief overview of a typical day in your current role?
  • What do you enjoy about your current role?
  • What do you think are the differences between a consultancy and product environment?
  • What appeals to you about working in a polyglot environment? (or data focused environment if they are already a polyglot).
  • What do you know about TDS, what made you want to come and meet with us today?

3. Company Role (10 minutes)

  • Explain the role of an Engineer/Senior Engineer (link to answers in previous step).
  • Describe the project you work on, how the team works, account team size and make up.
  • Discuss what you enjoy about working for TDS and how it has benefited you/your skills/ career (link to their motivations from step 2).
  • Highlight what TDS working/ engineering ethos and culture is.
  • Explain what is expected in our role e.g. behaviours/ attitude/ tech.

4. Technical (10 minutes)

Live Tech Test

  • Having had time to reflect; is there anything you would have done differently?
  • If you were creating this as an application to be used in a production enviornment, what additional considerations would you make?

Remote Tech Test

  • What were your thoughts on the tech test?
  • What languages did you consider? why did you use x?
  • If you were creating this as an application to be used in a production enviornment, what additional considerations would you make?
  • Review feedback from reviewer.

Architecture

  • Discuss the architecture of a recent project you have been involved with. (if they have already mentioned a project ask them about that). Is there anything you feel could have been improved or done differently?

Security

  • What application security practices/policies have you been exposed to? (e.g. Pen Test, Static/Dynamic code analysis/ OWASP).
  • How do you make sure your dependencies are up to date?

Sys Admin

  • How have you implemented monitoring, alerting in past projects?

Testing

  • How do you approach testing of your work?
  • What’s the test process where you work/have worked?

Agile: (Skip if Needed)

  • What experience of agile process have you had before? (If no, move straight to Probe Q without whiteboard exercise)

  • Whiteboard exercise: Please draw an example of a story/task/Kanban board that you have worked with, guide us through the lifecycle of a story & how you’re involved at each stage. Probe whiteboard exercise with:

  • Are they involved in refinement/elaboration/prioritisation/sizing activity?

  • Collaboration with other roles PO/BA/Test etc rather than hand-offs/"mini-waterfall".
  • Proactivity and pragmatism rather than waiting for task assignment and just following process.
  • If there are issues with example given, what do they propose would make it better?
  • Focus on completion of in-flight tickets over starting new ones (WIP).

  • What ceremonies would they expect the team to fulfil.

  • What do you need before starting work on a user story?

  • When do you consider a piece of work complete?

5. Behaviours (15 minutes)

At the shed we are approximately 60 people. We are a collaborative, close knit and diverse team. The following questions are a selection of competency / behaviour questions, not particularly looking for right or wrong answers, but more looking to assess your approach or experience in facing different situations. Please use real examples whenever possible.

5.1 Data Engineer

  1. For you, what’s the difference between doing a good job and a great job.
  2. What would you do if someone on your team produced some poor quality work?
  3. Have you ever worked on a project that was unsuccessful. If so, whose fault was it? is there anything that if you faced the same situation now, you would do differently?
  4. How do you asses the value of your work?
  5. If you were given some feedback that you thought was unjust, what would you do about it?
  6. Tell us about an occasion when you've needed to motivate or boost the morale of your team or one of your team mates. How did you go about it, what was the outcome?
  7. If you were given a task by your line manager, and then a client ticket came in, and there is not enough time to do both; How would you prioritise which one to complete?
  8. How do you ensure your technical skills and abilites are kept up to date? Probe: When you set a learning goal, how do you go about achieving it?

5.2 Senior / Principal Engineer

  1. For you, what’s the difference between doing a good job and a great job.
  2. What would you do if someone on your team produced some poor quality work?
  3. What would you do if someone on your team consistently produced high quality work?
  4. How do you asses the value of your work?
  5. If you were given some feedback that you thought was unjust, what would you do about it?
  6. If you were given a task by your line manager, and then a client ticket came in, and there is not enough time to do both; How would you prioritise which one to complete?
  7. How do you ensure your technical skills and abilites are kept up to date? Probe: When you set a learning goal, how do you go about achieving it?
  8. What things would you consider when working in a team that is scaling up over the coming months?
  9. In your previous roles, give examples of how you have kept up to date with the work going on outside of your team.
  10. What is the toughest group or person that you have had to get cooperation from? What did you do to get this cooperation?
  11. When you look back over your career is there a project that you been disappointed with and why?

6. Candidate Questions (10 minutes)

Be enthusiastic/ passionate in your response & link to their drivers from
section 2! Remember what they’re really asking are questions that help to visualise what
it is like to work here e.g:

  • What it’s like being part of the TDS team.
  • What it’s like to be part of YOUR team.
  • How TDS compares to other companies they are interviewing with.
  • What opportunities they will get with TDS.
  • What their skills, career, experience can achieve at TDS.
  • Most importantly: tell them how they can achieve their LEARNING Q answer
    with by working here. e.g their answer to what skills they are keen to develop/learn) & highlight how at TDS we would help them achieve this. This will be last thing they remember about TDS!

7. Next Steps (5 minutes)

  • How does the opportunity at TDS compare to your other opportunities? (Do they need any further info from you to help in their decision).
  • Set feedback timeframe – “1 interview tomorrow, decision by close of play”.
  • Tour of offices.
  • Thank them for coming in, really enjoyed meeting you. (use your recruiter’s name) will be in touch with feedback shortly.