As an employer, we are always trying to improve our technical interview. At this point in time we've found the best approach is to look at the ticket board and think "If I had a new developer, what could they work on?". Then come up with a single real world question and ask the candidate this during the interview. The question should allow for a junior or senior to give an answer where the depth of the answer would likely vary much like the feedback on a hypothetical peer review would. We try to avoid anything requiring too much business domain knowledge. You should be able to explain the scenario to someone off the street (non-developer). We then have a face to face (or screen share) discussion about the problem, any questions or scoping and the approach that could be taken like any real developer would if they were given this as a ticket.

As an example:

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We have an existing job management system to track and update the progress of warranty repairs (e.g. whitegoods). Sometimes parts need to be ordered to complete a repair. If we wanted the job system to book and track parts orders into third-party warehouse management systems; how would you address the following?

- Credential management

- Data types and their life cycles

- Sources of truth e.g.

    - Customers who have purchased whitegoods are the source of truth for new jobs

    - Our staff operate the job system and our clients (manufacturers) are the source of truth for parts

    - Tradespeople operate the job system and are the source of truth for new parts orders

    - Warehouse staff operate the WMS and are the source of truth for stock levels

- Required/Optional API calls and their triggers

- Fault tolerance and monitoring

- Compensate for variations/shortfalls in existing WMS APIs (in some countries we use a 3PL)

WMS: Warehouse Management Software

3PL: An external company who operates a warehouse and dispatches items on your behalf. These companies may do so for multiple tenants and have established staff, processes and WMS.