# Aspirations ## Why are you interested in working with our company?  Is the candidate genuinely interested in the company, and have they done any research on the company? Do their interests match with what the job will offer?   ## What do you want to learn today for your work-life or career? What are you doing to learn it?  Explore how much curiosity the candidate has and if they practice continuous learning and self-improvement. Do they have a structured approach to improving themselves? Are they trying to meet those goals, or are they just waiting for the goals to materialize? ## What is something that you’ve experienced in previous roles that you would like to see with us again?  Does the candidate have a cultural overlap with us? Is what matters to them important to us? Can we learn anything from the candidate?  ## Where do you see yourself in five years, and how do you plan to get there?  Is the candidate interested in our business domain (ideally, without any prodding)? Do their aspirations match well with the role? Does the candidate have any aspirations at all...?  # Style of Work  ## Describe a time when you received an assignment where the expected outcome was unclear. What happened?  Test if the candidate can handle ambiguity and is willing to engage with the situation proactively.  What was unclear? What action did the candidate take to resolve the ambiguity?  ## Describe a time when you were required to collaborate with others on a specific challenge or project. How did it go?  Explore if the candidate prefers collaborative teamwork (& pairing/mobbing as a developer). Or do they prefer to work independently in more of a workgroup-style environment? How does the candidate describe the interactions? Did the candidate work closely with others or only during regular meetings? Does the candidate proactively connect with people or even build their own team?  ## Describe a process that failed or a production issue you had. What did you do to improve it?  Test the candidates’ willingness to learn & improve themselves and their overall level of curiosity. Does the candidate have a willingness to learn and expand? Are they [still] interested in improving themselves? Do they explore and keep expanding their worldview? ## Describe a situation where you disagreed with your manager or team on the direction, especially on a technical issue. How did it get resolved?  Test if they can handle conflict and resolve disagreements as teammates.  How did the candidate surface the disagreement? How did the team build an agreement?  ## Have you wanted to provide constructive criticism to someone in your team about their work habits? Did you manage to do that, and how did you ensure the criticism was effective? Look for transparency and curiosity (in the point-of-view of their counterparts) in their feedback delivery. How was the criticism presented? Did they reach a consensus and how did they *know* the consensus had been reached? What was learned in the process?  ## Can you describe a time when you had to address a mid-project change in requirements? How did you resolve it?  Test if the candidate has an agile mindset and is prepared to handle frequent direction changes (if those changes are justified).  How was the change discovered? How big was the impact of that new requirement? Could it have been mitigated? Was anything learned from that change?  # Technical Questions See [Machine Learning Interview Questions](Machine%20Learning%20Interview%20Questions.md) for technical questions in that area.