30 Smart Questions to Ask at the End of a Tech Interview

"Do you have any questions for me?" comes at the end of nearly every interview, and "No, I think you covered everything" is one of the weakest ways to finish. Your questions show what you care about, how much you prepared, and how you think about the work. They're also your best chance to find out whether you actually want the job.

Here's how to pick good questions, and 30 you can use.

Why your questions matter

Interviewers notice three things in this part of the conversation:

• Preparation. A question that references the team's product, a recent launch or something said earlier shows you paid attention.
• Priorities. Asking about code review, on-call or how decisions are made tells them what kind of engineer you are.
• Engagement. A real follow-up to their answer turns the last five minutes into a conversation instead of a formality.

Plan for two or three questions per interviewer, and have a few spares in case earlier answers cover them.

Questions for engineers on the team

Peers know what the day-to-day work is really like. Ask them about the work, not the perks.

1. What does a typical week look like for you?
2. What are you working on right now, and how did that work get picked?
3. How does code get from a branch to production here?
4. What does code review look like? How long does a typical review take?
5. What's the on-call rotation like, and how often do you get paged?
6. What's the most interesting technical problem the team has solved recently?
7. What part of the codebase do people avoid touching, and why?
8. How do you test changes before they ship?
9. What do you wish you had known before you joined?
10. When something breaks in production, what happens next?

Questions 7 and 10 are especially revealing. A team that answers them openly usually has a healthy culture around mistakes.

Questions for the hiring manager

Managers decide what you'll work on and how you'll be measured. Use your time to understand expectations.

11. What would success look like in this role after six months?
12. What's the biggest challenge the team is facing right now?
13. Why is this role open? Is it a new position or a backfill?
14. How do you decide what the team works on each quarter?
15. How do engineers grow here? What does the path to the next level look like?
16. How do you give feedback, and how often?
17. What's the balance between new features, maintenance and technical debt?
18. How does the team work with product and design?
19. What kind of person tends to do really well on this team?
20. Is there anything about my background that makes you hesitant? I'd be glad to address it.

Question 20 takes nerve, but it gives you a chance to clear up a misunderstanding before the debrief, while you're still in the room.

Questions for senior leadership

With a director, VP or founder, zoom out to strategy and direction.

21. Where do you see the product in two years?
22. What's the biggest risk to the company right now?
23. How does engineering influence product strategy?
24. What are you investing in that most people outside the company don't see yet?
25. How has the engineering culture changed as the company has grown?
26. What does the company do better than anyone else?

Questions that work with anyone

These are safe in any round, and the answers are often the most honest you'll hear.

27. What do you enjoy most about working here?
28. What's one thing you'd change if you could?
29. How has your role changed since you joined?
30. What are the next steps in the process, and when should I expect to hear back?

Save question 30 for the last interviewer of the day, or for the recruiter.

Questions to avoid

Some questions hurt more than they help:

• Anything answered on the careers page. "What does the company do?" signals you didn't prepare.
• Salary, vacation and benefits in early technical rounds. These matter, but the recruiter is the right person. See our guide to negotiating a software engineer offer for when and how to raise them.
• "Did I get the job?" It puts the interviewer in an awkward spot, and they usually can't answer.
• Yes-or-no questions. "Do you like it here?" invites a one-word answer. "What do you like most about working here?" invites a story.
• Questions that sound like complaints in disguise. "How strict are you about working hours?" can be reworded as "How does the team handle flexible schedules?"

Make the questions your own

Generic questions are fine, but tailored ones stand out. Before each interview:

1. Read the job description again and note what the team owns.
2. Look at recent launches, engineering blog posts or talks from the company.
3. Check the interviewer's background if you have their name, so you can ask about something they've worked on.

Then turn what you found into a question: "I read that you moved your search service to a new indexing pipeline last year. What did the team learn from that migration?"

Listen, then follow up

The best question you'll ask is often the second one. If the manager says the biggest challenge is reliability, follow up: "What's been tried so far, and what would you want someone in this role to take on first?" That shows you listened, and it gives you useful information about the job.

Write down what you hear right after each round. When the offers come in, the answers about on-call, growth and team health will matter as much as the salary.

Keep your questions where you can see them

It's normal to glance at notes in this part of the interview, especially on a video call. Keep a short list of your top questions for each interviewer next to your camera, along with the answer you prepared for "Tell me about yourself" and the stories you plan to use. When you're prepared for the end of the interview, you can finish strong instead of scrambling.