The Top 5 Tech Interview Tips No One Is Talking About

Sam Erickson
Updated 7 days ago

Key Takeaways

Acknowledge knowledge gaps, then demonstrate related knowledge, explicit assumptions, and a way to verify your answer.
Collaborate without outsourcing the exercise: explain your attempt before asking whether a hint is appropriate.
Pair a failure with your responsibility, corrective action, and evidence of what changed.
Invite focused clarification during the interview, not an immediate verdict on your performance.
Evaluate the employer too: ask for concrete examples of team practices, and confirm interview logistics and tool rules beforehand.

The most useful software engineering interview tips aren't tricks: be candid about uncertainty, make your reasoning visible, and show how you work with people. These behaviors support evidence of role-relevant technical competence; they don't replace it.

Keep technical preparation at the center. Microsoft's technical interview guidance covers problem solving, design, coding, and testing—not just conversation. Use the five habits below to make your technical work and professional judgment easier to evaluate.

1) Admit When You Don't Know Something—and Keep Reasoning

Don't bluff, but don't stop at “I don't know,” either. Separate the part you understand from the part you haven't used or can't confidently recall.

Try: “I haven't used that feature directly. My understanding of the underlying problem is this. Assuming we need these guarantees, I'd compare these approaches, then check the documentation and a small test before committing.”

Acknowledge the gap
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State related knowledge
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Make assumptions explicit
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Reason through an approach
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Explain how you would verify it

Be equally precise about language experience. If it's true, say: “Java is my strongest production language. I've used Python for smaller scripts, but not for a production service. If language choice is open, I'd prefer Java for this exercise.”

If the job specifically requires strong Python experience, don't present Java expertise as an equivalent qualification. Describe your actual Python work, acknowledge the remaining gap, and ask what proficiency the role requires on entry. A learning plan isn't evidence that you already meet a requirement.

You don't need to volunteer every weakness. Address relevant gaps honestly and give the interviewer something concrete to evaluate.

2) Ask for Help Without Handing Over the Problem

Make collaboration deliberate. Atlassian's engineering interview handbook explicitly discusses communication and collaboration as skills it evaluates; that doesn't mean every employer or exercise welcomes the same amount of assistance.

For a live coding interview, practice this sequence:

Clarify requirements. Ask about input, output, constraints, and ambiguous examples.
Propose an approach. Explain a workable baseline and its main tradeoff before implementing it.
Narrate decisions. Explain why you're choosing a data structure or changing direction, rather than reading every keystroke aloud.
Test deliberately. Walk through an ordinary case and relevant edge cases. Use the same discipline you would when applying the benefits of unit testing to everyday development.
Respond to guidance. Restate what a hint changes, then work through the consequences yourself.

When stuck, identify the obstacle: “I can explain the straightforward solution, but I'm stuck on avoiding repeated work. I've considered these two approaches. Would a small hint be appropriate, or would you prefer that I continue independently?”

If hints aren't part of the exercise, continue with your best justified approach and document its limitations. In an asynchronous screen, use the stated support channel for instructions or platform problems; don't assume another person can help solve the task.

3) Talk About Failures Through What Changed

A failure story shouldn't end with “I learned a lot.” Explain what you now do differently and what evidence supports the improvement. Amazon's senior software engineer preparation guide asks candidates to prepare examples involving success, failure, and growth, with metrics or data where applicable.

Choose a real example you can discuss without exposing confidential information. A missed estimate, incomplete test strategy, or poorly coordinated change can work; you don't need a dramatic outage.

Context: What were you trying to accomplish, and what constraints mattered?
Responsibility: What decision or omission was yours?
Correction: What did you do to contain or repair the problem?
Change: What did you alter in your process afterward?
Evidence: How did you check whether that change helped?

Use this structure as a template, not a story to memorize: “I owned [decision]. I missed [risk], which caused [impact]. I corrected it by [action], then changed [practice]. We checked the change through [evidence].”

For a deployment example, prepare to discuss the checks, ownership, and rollback decisions in your software rollout plan. Don't blame colleagues or claim sole credit for a team recovery.

Use numbers only when you actually have them. Otherwise, describe a specific observable result and be honest about what you couldn't measure.

4) Invite Focused Feedback, Not an Instant Hiring Verdict

Replace “How did I do?” with a question that helps the conversation move forward:

“Would you like more detail on the implementation or the tradeoffs?”
“Have I addressed the failure scenario you wanted to explore?”
“Would you prefer that I optimize this approach or discuss an alternative?”

Then listen and adjust. Don't repeatedly ask for reassurance or turn clarification into a request for the expected answer.

Afterward, ask the recruiter whether any actionable feedback is available, but don't depend on receiving it. Spotify's candidate FAQ, for example, says detailed interview feedback isn't always possible.

Make your own brief debrief: where you lost time, which assumption you missed, and what you'll practice next. Respect any restrictions on retaining or sharing assessment material.

5) Ask About Team Culture Through Actual Work

You're evaluating the employer, not just trying to be selected. “What do you enjoy about working here?” is a useful opener; follow it with questions about how the team operates.

Decision-making: “Can you walk me through a recent technical decision and who made the final call?”
Code review: “How do you handle a review that stalls or a disagreement about an approach?”
Mentoring: “What support would someone at my level receive during their first few months?”
On-call: “Would this role join an on-call rotation? What are the escalation, training, and after-hours expectations?”
Incident learning: “What changed after a recent incident, and how were follow-up actions tracked?”
Disagreement: “When someone challenges an established approach, how does the team resolve it?”

Ask about the specific team and role. Follow broad claims such as “we value mentoring” with “What did that look like for the last person who joined?”

Look for examples, ownership, and acknowledged tradeoffs. If an answer stays vague, ask another teammate rather than treating one response as a definitive verdict. Decide which working conditions are acceptable to you—not merely which answers sound impressive.

How Do I Prepare for a High-Tech Interview?

Start with the job description and the recruiter's explanation of the interview, not a list of industry trends. Microsoft's general interview guidance recommends identifying role-relevant skills and preparing specific examples of your work, outcomes, and learning.

Map requirements to evidence. For each important skill, identify a project, technical decision, or exercise that demonstrates it.
Find the gaps. Practice the relevant language, tools, and problem types. For a Java-focused role, use Java HashMap interview questions to practice explanations as well as answers.
Rehearse the actual format. Match the time limit, environment, and permitted resources as closely as you can.

Use the table as a preparation plan, not a universal description of hiring criteria.

Format	What to practice	What to clarify beforehand
Live coding	Explain an approach, implement it, and test it while communicating.	Language choice, editor, execution environment, and whether hints are available.
System design	Define requirements, sketch components, and discuss reliability, security, cost, and scaling tradeoffs.	Expected depth, role level, and available diagramming tools.
Behavioral interview	Give concise, truthful examples of decisions, collaboration, setbacks, and results.	Topics or competencies to prepare for.
Take-home	Deliver a scoped solution with tests, setup instructions, and stated limitations.	Time budget, evaluation criteria, permitted resources, and submission expectations.
Asynchronous screen	Work in the sample environment and read instructions carefully.	Time limits, resource rules, accessibility, and support for technical problems.

Confirm Logistics and Accessibility

Ask about duration, breaks, time zone, platform, and what you'll need to share on screen. Test your setup and keep the recruiter's contact information available.

Raise accessibility needs with the recruiting contact and ask how to request reasonable accommodations. Microsoft's interview guidance explicitly provides an accessibility-request route for candidates who need accommodations or have concerns about the virtual platform. Follow the employer's process for your stage.

Clarify Rules for Notes, Search, and AI Tools

Ask separately about personal notes, documentation, web search, autocomplete, and AI assistants for each stage. Don't infer permission from the fact that an exercise happens at home or in your own editor.

When AI assistance is explicitly allowed, be prepared to explain, test, and take responsibility for any generated code. Follow disclosure requirements, and ask before submitting assessment material to an external tool.

How Can I Impress a Tech Interviewer?

Give evidence, not a performance of confidence. Connect an answer to a requirement, explain a tradeoff, check your work, and correct a mistake without defensiveness.

Be interested in the interviewer and respectful of their time, but don't treat rapport as compensation for missing technical requirements. Aim to make your abilities understandable, not to appear effortless.

How Do You Talk in a Tech Interview?

State the goal, explain your next decision, and pause for clarification. You don't need to narrate every thought. Here's a language-neutral example of improving coding interview communication:

Practice task: return unique integers in first-appearance order.

Before:
"I'll use a set."

After:
"Should the result preserve first-appearance order?
Assuming yes, I'd keep a record of values already seen
and append a value to the result only on its first appearance.
I'd test empty input and [3, 3, 2, 3], which should return [3, 2].
I'll implement that approach, then check the result."

For a behavioral answer, give the headline first, then the context and evidence. Offer more detail rather than delivering an uninterrupted project history.

How Do I Relax Before a Tech Interview?

Make the session familiar: rehearse in the expected format, check your equipment, and leave a buffer before the meeting. Use a small relevant project to practice explaining decisions, not as a last-minute attempt to learn an entire stack.

If you need a pause, say, “I'd like a moment to organize my approach.” Mentioning nervousness is optional; you don't owe the interviewer that disclosure.

Follow Up Through the Agreed Process

Before leaving, ask when to expect the next update. Follow the recruiter's instructions; if a thank-you note is appropriate, keep it brief and specific. Treat it as courtesy, not a required step or a way to reverse the assessment. If the stated timeline passes, send a concise status inquiry.

FAQ

What should I do if I don't know the answer in a technical interview?

Acknowledge the specific gap, state what you do know, and make your assumptions explicit. Reason through a possible approach and explain how you would verify it rather than presenting a guess as fact.

Is it okay to ask for a hint during a coding interview?

Explain what you've tried and where you're stuck, then ask whether a hint is appropriate for the exercise. If you receive one, explain how it changes your approach and continue solving the problem yourself.

How should I discuss a failure in a software engineering interview?

Explain the context, your responsibility, the corrective action, and what changed afterward. Use real evidence of improvement where available, avoid blaming colleagues, and protect confidential information.

What questions should I ask about a software engineering team's culture?

Ask for recent examples of technical decisions, code-review disagreements, mentoring, and incident follow-up. Clarify on-call expectations for your role and ask how the team supports someone at your experience level.

Can I use notes or an AI assistant during a coding interview?

Ask which notes, documentation, web search, and AI tools are permitted for that specific stage, and follow the stated rules. If AI assistance is allowed, explain and verify any generated code; if permission is unclear, ask before using it.