I would also have a few questions ready for them. This way you can show them that you have prepared. for my current position, I asked them about: - the use of IM - about working from home during the winter (we can get alot of snow here) - what is used for source control - what type of process is used for the development - how many meetings a week are there - I also asked the hiring manager what technical websites / magazines does he read. I thought of that one at the last minute, but it made the manager think for a minute. I wanted to see how technical or pointy-haired he was. Glad to see that he was a very technical manager. During the interview he got his laptop and came to CP and checked out my articles that I had written. One thing to think about when you do a technical interview is that there will be some people that talk to you that are non-technical people and then some others that will be programmers. I had some non-technical people ask me to explain some technical things and I know that they would not know if I was right or not. But that can be hard to tell. Alot of times they just want to make you think about how you will approach the problem and how you go about getting things done. You could be in left field with your actual information, but your way that you got there is important too. Like the interview question about "How many pizza places would you need if you were creating a new city, the size of LA, from scratch?" There is no right or wrong answer, just how you got there. One last thing - be upfront about things. If you don't know or can't remember something, tell them that. This will help to eliminate some fumbling for the wrong answer. And alot of technical people will understand that you can't know everything. but them also tell them how you would go about looking it up, it that fit what they were asking. Steve Maier, MCSD MCAD
