Eric Ries, ex-CTO and cur­rent tech startup advi­sor, offers advice on how to con­duct a thor­ough and effec­tive tech­ni­cal inter­view. Just one of many meth­ods, obvi­ously, but some good infor­ma­tion nonetheless.

Find­ing great engi­neers is hard; fig­ur­ing out who’s good is even harder. The most impor­tant step in eval­u­at­ing a can­di­date is con­duct­ing a good tech­ni­cal inter­view. If done right, a pro­gram­ming inter­view serves two pur­poses simul­ta­ne­ously. On the one hand, it gives you insight into what kind of employee the can­di­date might be. But it also is your first exer­cise in impress­ing them with the val­ues your com­pany holds. This sec­ond objec­tive plays no small part in allow­ing you to hire the best.