Hiring for tech roles is harder than ever. According to Robert Half’s Building Future-Forward Tech Teams report for 2025, 87% of technology leaders in the U.S. say they’re struggling to find skilled candidates. And with AI, automation and new architectures reshaping entire industries, the pressure to hire skilled professionals who can lead, implement and scale emerging technology projects is only intensifying.
If you’re a hiring manager, your tech interview questions need to do more than confirm basic credentials. You want candidates who can think critically, adapt quickly and collaborate across teams—people who understand the tech tools of today and are eager to master tomorrow’s.
So, forget predictable questions like “Where do you see yourself in five years?” They’re unlikely to provide much insight. Yes-or-no questions won’t either. Instead, your tech interview questions should help reveal how candidates solve problems, keep their skills current, and work effectively across teams.
What types of questions should you ask potential hires? Consider using the 17 examples listed below—depending on the roles you’re hiring for and your organization’s requirements—to help identify curious and collaborative tech and IT professionals ready to make an impact.
1. What online communities, tools or resources do you rely on to stay effective?
Most tech workers turn to websites such as Stack Exchange, Codecademy or GitHub when they need help. Look for candidates who actively engage with the broader tech community and have a diverse set of go-to resources tailored to their specific interests and roles. Their answer can provide insights into their problem-solving approaches, continuous learning mindset and ability to adapt to new challenges.
2. How do you keep your technology skills current?
Passion for technology often extends beyond the workplace. Strong candidates have taken the initiative to grow their skills through a variety of means, such as:
Participating in online courses, workshops or boot camps
Contributing to open-source projects
Attending industry conferences, meetups or hackathons
Working on personal projects to explore new technologies
Staying engaged with tech blogs, podcasts and thought leaders
Dive deeper into a potential hire’s learning journey to understand what drives them, how they apply new knowledge in their work and what skills they are excited to develop further. This discussion can also touch on how your organization can help support their continued growth as a professional.
3. How would you explain a particular technology tool to someone with limited tech skills?
To answer this tech interview question, a candidate must break down complex ideas without relying on jargon. Ask the candidate to explain something relevant to the role, like APIs, large language models (LLMs) or cloud architecture. Can they make it clear and relatable
Strong responses will:
Use plain, concise language
Draw on analogies or everyday examples
Break ideas into steps and check for understanding
Great tech interview questions don’t just test knowledge—they test clarity. And the ability to explain something simply often reflects deeper understanding.
4. What role do you think ethics and governance should play in AI development?
As AI becomes a core part of business operations, this is one of the most essential tech interview questions to ask—especially when hiring for tech roles that touch data, customer experience or product design.
According to Building Future-Forward Tech Teams, AI governance ranks among the top five priorities for technology leaders in 2025, right alongside cybersecurity and cloud modernization—and with good reason. As AI adoption accelerates, companies need professionals who can think critically about how these systems are trained, tested, and deployed.
Ask candidates whether they’ve worked with frameworks or policies that guide responsible AI development. Do they stay informed on topics like algorithmic bias, explainability or data privacy? Have they collaborated with legal, risk or compliance teams? This question can reveal a lot about how a candidate balances innovation with accountability.
Responsible AI starts with responsible data practices—and the right professionals to manage them.
Check out our guide to hiring a data scientist.
5. What experience do you have with AI tools?
Whether you’re hiring for a data engineer, software developer or QA lead, chances are they’ll need to understand or interact with AI tools—even if they’re not building them directly.
Ask which models and frameworks they’ve worked with—both open-source frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow, and proprietary models like Azure OpenAI or Anthropic’s Claude. Have they used these tools to build anything real? Can they explain the trade-offs between open-source flexibility and proprietary scale?
You’re not necessarily testing for mastery, but you are looking for fluency, adaptability and the ability to apply AI capabilities to real-world challenges.
6. What strengths do you think are most important in a developer (or another relevant tech position)?
When hiring for tech roles, it’s easy to focus on hard skills. But this is one of those tech interview questions that lets you see what the candidate values most—in their work and within a team.
Some potential hires may highlight technical strengths like clean coding, CI/CD fluency or architectural design. Others might emphasize adaptability, communication or debugging under pressure. There’s no right answer—but ideally, they’ll strike a balance between technical depth and collaborative instincts.
You’ll also get a clearer picture of how the candidate sees their role evolving—and where they recognize opportunities for growth. And that can be just as important as skills on their resume.
7. Can you describe a time when you had to learn a new technology quickly to complete a project?
This tech interview question cuts straight to a candidate’s adaptability. Look for stories that show initiative and a structured approach to self-learning. Maybe the candidate picked up a new JavaScript framework over a weekend or taught themselves how to fine-tune an AI model to meet a project deadline.
Follow up by asking what support they needed along the way—did they seek out tutorials, peers, mentors or community forums? Their answer will provide insight into how they tackle the unknown, and whether they thrive in environments where change is constant.
Hiring a software developer? Explore these tips for finding a strong candidate
8. Have you worked with legacy systems? How do you balance maintaining them with pushing for modernization?
As businesses deal with technical debt and ongoing digital transformation, this is one of the most relevant tech interview questions to ask, especially when hiring for tech roles in infrastructure, enterprise systems or architecture.
Ask candidates how they’ve handled this challenge in the past. Have they worked with older technologies like COBOL or .NET Framework? Did they advocate for modernization—or find creative ways to improve legacy performance without breaking things?
Their approach can reveal whether they understand the delicate balance between innovation and stability—a critical skill in today’s fast-evolving tech landscape.
9. Tell me about a time when things didn’t go the way you wanted at work, such as a project that failed or being passed over for a promotion.
Everyone encounters professional setbacks at some point in their career. What matters is how they respond—and what they learn from those experiences.
The best employees are resilient, using professional missteps or disappointments as springboards for growth and positive change. As you listen to their story, focus not just on what happened, but also on how the candidate responded. Their reaction can reveal whether they can bring perseverance, self-awareness and a continuous improvement mindset to your team.
10. What is your favorite software development methodology, and why?
This tech interview question can help you evaluate a candidate’s understanding of different project management approaches—and their ability to select the most appropriate one based on project needs.
A solid answer might compare the benefits of Agile methodologies like Scrum or Kanban with more traditional approaches like Waterfall. The candidate might explain, for example, how the flexible, iterative approach of Agile is perfect for projects that need to adapt quickly to changes. In contrast, Waterfall’s structured, step-by-step process works best for projects with precise, unchanging requirements and milestones.
Listen for answers that demonstrate a deep understanding of each methodology’s strengths and weaknesses—and which showcase the candidate’s ability to justify their preferred approach based on real-world scenarios.
11. Tell me about a tech project you’ve worked on in your spare time.
This is one of the best tech interview questions for spotting curiosity, creativity and self-motivation—especially when hiring for tech roles that demand continuous learning.
Did the candidate build a browser extension to solve a personal frustration? Contribute to an open-source project in Python? Experiment with generative AI tools just for fun?
Ask the candidate what drew them to the project and what they learned from it. If they’ve continued working on it, even better. That suggests follow-through. And if the potential hire can show you something they’ve built, you’ve likely found someone who can bring both energy and ownership to their work.
12. What skills or habits make you an effective hybrid worker?
Hybrid work is now the norm in many tech and IT organizations. This tech interview question can help you assess whether a candidate can thrive across work environments.
Ask candidates how they manage time, set boundaries and communicate when working off-site. Are they comfortable using remote collaboration tools like Slack, Notion, Zoom or Miro? Are they proactive about sharing updates and asking for feedback?
The strongest candidates for hybrid roles are adaptable, self-motivated and clear communicators. They know how to work independently, but they also understand when to reach out, align and collaborate. That balance is key to high-performing hybrid teams.
13. How do you handle tight deadlines?
IT teams often face daunting time constraints, so you need professionals who can work efficiently and accurately under pressure. Asking this tech interview question may give you a sense of how a candidate deals with stress and whether they can keep pace with projects demands.
You can also follow up by asking about a time when the candidate missed a deadline and how they handled the situation. Their answer can provide insight into their resilience, accountability and ability to learn from setbacks.
14. How do you manage your work-life balance?
Burnout remains a real concern in tech, especially in roles where the line between “online” and “always on” can blur easily. That’s why this is one of the more revealing tech interview questions, even if it doesn’t sound technical at first.
Ask candidates how they set boundaries, decompress after major pushes and stay energized during long projects. Do they schedule focused work time? Take real breaks? Speak up when things become unsustainable?
You might also share how your company supports balance, whether that’s no-meeting Fridays, flex hours or mental health days. When you’re hiring for tech and IT jobs, small commitments to providing work-life balance can make a big difference—and can also be deciding factors for top candidates.
15. Have you worked on any projects involving enterprise systems?
Enterprise systems are evolving fast, with platforms like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Workday now integrating AI, analytics and automation features.
Robert Half research for the Future-Forward Tech Teams report shows that 75% of tech leaders expect demand for ERP expertise to increase in 2025—and 92% are already facing hiring challenges in this area.
Even if you’re not hiring for a core enterprise resource planning (ERP) role or assembling a team for an ERP project, it’s valuable to know if a candidate has experience with enterprise platforms, especially in customizing, integrating or optimizing them for real-world use. Follow up by asking how they collaborated with cross-functional teams or navigated system complexity.
This question can help you spot candidates who understand how tech decisions can ripple across an entire organization.
16. How do you approach cross-functional collaboration on tech projects?
Modern tech teams rarely work in silos. Whether you’re developing internal tools or customer-facing features, collaboration with product, design, data, operations or even legal teams is often the norm.
This question can help you dig into how candidates navigate those intersections. Can they adjust their language for nontechnical audiences? Do they listen as much as they talk? How do they handle feedback or misalignment?
With more organizations emphasizing cross-functional agility, the ability to foster trust across teams is essential to delivering usable, scalable solutions that meet business needs.
17. Why do you want to work for our organization?
It may sound simple, but this is one of the most telling tech interview questions when hiring for tech roles. It gives you a chance to see whether a candidate has done their homework and whether their goals align with yours.
Listen for specifics. Are they excited about your products, your use of AI, your approach to engineering, or your mission? Or does it seem like they’re saying what they think you want to hear?
Strong candidates will have reviewed your tech stack, read your blog, and maybe even explored your open-source projects. If they can’t name at least one thing that stands out to them about your company or team, that’s a red flag.
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Want to build a next-gen tech team that’s more than just future-ready? Get insight and strategies for success in Robert Half’s Building Future-Forward Tech Teams report for 2025.
