# Six Tips for Interviewing Software Engineers When You Aren't Technical

DevFeed: [Six Tips for Interviewing Software Engineers When You Aren't Technical](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/six-tips-for-interviewing-software-engineers-when-you-aren-t-technical-28339.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<http://fuzzyblog.io/blog/startup/2020/03/10/six-tips-for-interviewing-software-engineers-when-you-aren-t-technical.html>)

Author: Fuzzygroup

Published: 2020-03-10T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Scott Johnson](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/scott-johnson.md>)

Topics: [Job](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/job.md>), [communications](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/communications.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [context](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/context.md>), [Code](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/code.md>)

Tags: [communications](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/communications.md>), [culture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/culture.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [hr](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hr.md>), [interview](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/interview.md>), [interviewing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/interviewing.md>), [job](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/job.md>), [remote](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/remote.md>), [startup](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/startup.md>), [technical](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/technical.md>), [tips](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tips.md>)

## AI overview

An article offers six tips for nontechnical interviewers evaluating software engineers, covering relevant questions, communication, attitude, values alignment, work practices, and compensation or company details. It also briefly discusses the author's opposition to coding tests, especially for senior engineering roles.

## Source excerpt

Interviewing engineers when you aren't one is a regular human resources task that tends to give non technical folk fits and for good reasons. 1. Focus on What You Can Interview them About To the non engineer, our job is all about coding but that's actually only a part of what an engineer does. Engineers exist in the same ecosystem as any employee and there are all kinds of questions about work practices that need to be asked. For example if remote work is a part of your work environment then dig down into how that person might function in a remote context. 2. Communications Ability Is Always Key Engineers do not work in a vacuum and the ability to communicate is a key ability that improves the quality of their work. Ask questions and see how the engineer communicates. 3. Look for Attitude A lot of engineers love to drown non technical people in what amounts to techno babel - it is a way for us (yes I am an engineer myself) to feel superior. Look for hints of that attitude during the interview and if you find it before they are an employee then you should expect it to be even worse once they are an employee. 4. Look for Values Alignment / Culture Fit When I'm an interviewer, I care most about whether or not the candidate can do the technical work because, honestly, I can work with anyone - in the end all I care about (mostly) is whether or not the code works. Now if you are non technical then you don't care about that but you likely care a lot about value alignment and culture fit so dig in there. 5. Look at Work Practices Even if you aren't technical, you likely have some idea around work practices in development from either past experience or media. It is ok to ask a general question like "I have a bug in what you are working on - how do you handle it?". And then what you are looking for is some kind of logical approach. Note: My first two answers on this one are: They either log the bug formally in the bug tracker / ticket system They try and reproduce it 6. Salar