What To Ask in an Engineering Job Interview
But only if you care about advancing your career
Most of us get to a point in our engineering careers, after having learned from our architects and managers, and after having put up with our companies’ issues and inefficiencies. One day — as if by magic — we realize that the things we’ve been learning from our “superiors” haven’t at all been the right things. And those issues and inefficiencies can be solved… and maybe we are the ones to solve them.
In other words, we get to a point when we’re ready to move an individual contributor (IC) role to a true leadership role.
(Note that by “leadership”, I’m referring not to job title, but rather the impact we have within the organization. Simply moving from Senior Engineer to Engineering Manager rarely changes our scope of impact. But when we start addressing our organization’s broader challenges, when we spearhead strategic initiatives, when we start telling our companies what they should do instead of their telling us what to do… that’s the type of leadership to which I’m referring. It might not immediately gain us a higher title or more money. But it will provide us with the confidence and experience to bolster our career moving forward.)
Maybe you’re reaching that point now… or maybe you’ve recently gotten there. Once you’ve achieved that trajectory, the trick is to hang onto it, and not allow yourself to slide back into your IC past. If you’re lucky, you’re already working at an organization that recognizes your leadership skills.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, and sometimes it takes switching jobs to continue along our newfound trajectory. And here is where we need to be extremely careful. As software engineers, we’re approached on a regular basis by companies that seem super-excited about bringing us onboard. But do they recognize and welcome our experience and leadership potential as much as we do? Or are they simply looking to hire us as another code-sligner?
If we’re switching jobs and want to maintain our newly-won career growth, then we need to change our attitude towards interviewing. We need to be as choosy with the companies as they will be with us.
