Good interview questions aren’t just about checking technical boxes; they’re a way to understand how someone thinks, give them a sense of the real work, and make space for meaningful discussion. They should generate clear signal without relying on tricks or trivia. Done right, they leave both sides feeling like the time was well spent.

Introduction

The best interview questions are more than just a test. They’re a way to ensure that both parties get a clear idea of what it would be like to work together. They should be:

  • grounded in real-world problems
  • encourage discussion
  • avoid gimmicks
  • expandable across levels

Grounded in Real Work

The strongest questions come directly from the kinds of challenges your team faces every day. These questions create context, helping the candidate visualize what it’s like to work on your codebase, with your data, or within your constraints. It’s not about mimicking production exactly;it’s about reflecting the shape of the problems. You want questions that allow candidates to showcase their problem-solving in a way that actually maps to the role.

This also helps reduce bias: instead of filtering for textbook knowledge, you’re evaluating the kinds of thinking you actually need on your team.

Enables Two-Way Alignment

A well-structured question encourages discussion. It gives candidates the opportunity to bring in their perspective, ask questions, and see whether your environment matches their strengths and interests. When done right, the interview becomes a collaborative exchange, not a one-sided interrogation. It’s important to remember that the interview is not a confrontation, and you want the candidate to succeed.

You learn not just whether they can do the work, but how they communicate, how they think through ambiguity, and whether their approach aligns with your team’s engineering culture. And just as importantly, it gives them insight into how the team work and what the collaboration looks like.

Avoids Gimmicks

Puzzles and trick questions usually produce noise. They reward prior exposure over solid reasoning which are valuable if the environment in which you operate you require a lot of specific knowledge: you can either try to find that in candidates or validate that they can pick up on tricks. They can also create unnecessary stress and exclude strong candidates who simply haven’t seen the specific pattern before.

A good question is well-scoped, has some constraints and can be reasoned through with just simple concepts. Even better if it encourages the candidate to ask clarifying questions; that’s often a good sign they’re thinking through the problem and engaging with the question.

Expandable Across Levels

A great question can cater to all levels of candidates, it can scale up or down in complexity such that everyone can enjoy the question. It also gives you flexibility during the interview: if someone finishes the core problem quickly, you can dig deeper. If they struggle initially, you can adjust without abandoning the question altogether and offers the possibility of making the interview a positive experience for the candidate even if they will not be moving forward. One has to remember that tech world can be quite small and you do not want to have negative experiences due to a bad interview question.

Example: Real-World System Design

Skip the textbook stuff it is usually very low signal. Try to ask something practical, based on a real-problem you are solving:

If you are working on a system that has to ingest a lot of data from articles, you can ask the candidate to design that, or in a coding exercise - give them an array of articles, and have the write a “processing” pipeline.

A more worked through example: Example: “We handle millions of log events per second. How would you design a system to make recent logs quickly queryable?”

Why I think this leads to better engagement:

It’s real: Based on the kind of infrastructure problems many teams tackle.

It’s relatable: Most engineers have some experience with logs or data pipelines.

It scales: You can start with a naive solution, then explore tradeoffs: consistency vs. availability, local vs. distributed stores, etc.

You can also layer in follow-ups: What happens when query volumes spikes? How would you handle hot partitions? What if logs need to be retained for compliance? How to deal with data deletion/rotation?

Takeaway

A good interview question should feel like a working session. It should be rooted in real problems, flexible for different experience levels, yet have enough ambiguity to allow for a discussion. If it results in a productive, thoughtful conversation, you’re probably on the right track.

It’s worth investing in this. A few well-designed questions can raise the bar on your hiring process and improve the experience for everyone involved.

Got an interview question you’ve seen that works well;or one that totally misses the mark? Let’s talk.