What qualities do you look for when hiring engineers?
Why This Is Asked
Interviewers want to understand your hiring philosophy and whether it aligns with their values. They're looking for a balance of technical ability, collaboration, growth mindset, and values—and evidence that you can assess these effectively.
Key Points to Cover
- Technical competence appropriate to the level
- Communication and collaboration skills
- Growth mindset and learning ability
- Values alignment and team fit
STAR Method Answer Template
Describe the context - what was happening, what team/company, what was at stake
What was your specific responsibility or challenge?
What specific steps did you take? Be detailed about YOUR actions
What was the outcome? Use metrics where possible. What did you learn?
💡 Tips
- Be specific—"good communicator" is vague; "can explain technical trade-offs to non-engineers" is concrete
- Mention how you assess these qualities in interviews, not just what you look for
✍️ Example Response
STAR formatSituation: At a B2B SaaS company, I was hiring for a senior engineer role. We'd had a few bad hires—technically strong but poor collaborators, or great culture fit but couldn't execute. I needed to refine what we looked for and how we assessed it. I'd been hiring for 8 years and had developed a clear philosophy.
Task: I needed to define the qualities that mattered for our team and ensure our interview loop actually evaluated them—not just technical skills.
Action: I worked with the team to define our bar: technical competence (design, coding, debugging), communication (can explain trade-offs to non-engineers, writes clearly), collaboration (constructive in reviews, asks good questions), growth mindset (admits gaps, learns from feedback), and ownership (drives outcomes, not just tasks). For each, I mapped interview stages: technical screen for competence, system design for communication, behavioral for collaboration and growth, and a "past project" deep-dive for ownership. I created rubrics so we scored consistently. I also trained interviewers on what to listen for—e.g., "tell me about a time you disagreed with a technical decision" to assess backbone and collaboration. I calibrated with the team after each debrief.
Result: Our next 5 hires were strong across the board. Our mis-hire rate dropped. I learned that defining qualities isn't enough—you need to map them to specific interview stages and train interviewers to probe for evidence. Vague criteria lead to inconsistent decisions.
🏢 Companies Known to Ask This
| Company | Variation / Focus |
|---|---|
| Amazon | Hire & Develop the Best — "What do you look for when hiring?" |
| Googleyness, technical bar | |
| Meta | High-performing teams, impact |
| Microsoft | Growth mindset, collaboration |
| Netflix | High performance, judgment, culture fit |
| Stripe | Technical judgment, moving fast |