Technical practitioner interview questions, and what good answers show

Architecture and design

1. Tell me about a design decision you wish you had made differently. Strong answers name the constraint they missed and what they changed afterwards.
2. How do you decide where to draw a service boundary? Look for hiding likely change and for data ownership.
3. When have you chosen a simple solution over a clever one? Look for cost awareness and for restraint.

Delivery and quality

1. How do you keep releases small without slowing the team down? Look for automation, feature flags and fast feedback.
2. Describe an outage you were part of. Strong answers cover detection, response and what changed in the system, not blame.
3. How do you handle technical debt with a manager who wants features? Look for pricing the debt in terms the manager cares about.

Applied AI

1. Where have you used AI in your work, and where did you decide not to? Look for verification of output and awareness of failure modes.
2. How would you test a feature built on a language model? Look for examples, edge cases and guardrails.

People and leadership

1. How do you give feedback that someone does not want to hear? Look for specifics and respect.
2. What would you do when two strong engineers disagree on an approach? Look for decision records and a clear way to decide.
3. How do you grow someone who is more junior than you? Look for deliberate practice, not just delegation.
4. What do you stop doing when you take on more scope? Look for honesty about the shift from doing to leading.

IICTP is a new independent credential and is not ISO/IEC 17024 accredited.