Vivien Croggen is a web developer at The MTM Agency, specialising in .NET backend development while contributing confidently across the full development lifecycle.
Her day‑to‑day work includes building and maintaining APIs, supporting frontend development with modern JavaScript frameworks, writing unit and automated tests, and working with deployment pipelines across multiple concurrent client projects.
After pivoting into tech following more than a decade running her own business, Viv has navigated the interview process, now working confidently across CI/CD, Kubernetes and multi‑CMS builds. Her experience gives her a practical understanding of what technical interviews really assess, and how candidates can prepare to show their best thinking under pressure.
There is no set format for a technical interview; each company and discipline approaches it differently, whether through a live coding challenge with an interviewer, a coding project completed in your own time and discussed in a follow-up interview, or a coding challenge done independently while being screen recorded.
The goal is the same, and it isn’t actually about writing perfect code. Even though behavioural and technical interviews are often conducted as separate stages of the hiring process, they will always overlap. The technical interview isn’t solely to gauge your technical skills, but also how you communicate, your thought processes, and how you manage pressure.
What to expect
It can be daunting not knowing what to expect from a technical interview, but remember that interviewers understand this is a stressful process for many – they are on your side and want you to succeed just as much as you do! The format of a technical interview will vary depending on the seniority of the role you are applying for. The most common type is the take-home project, where you are given a brief to complete in your own time and submit within a specified timeframe before the interview. At the interview, the interviewers will ask questions about your approach to the brief, your system design choices, and any challenges you faced. Always come prepared with STAR-format answers to these questions.
Live coding interviews consist of the interviewer presenting you with coding challenges, for example fibonacci algorithm questions, or writing functions to check for palindromes. Often they do not actually expect you to finish – so don’t panic! They want to assess your problem-solving abilities and how you break down a problem.
A warning – be careful with AI. As it becomes an ever-larger part of the industry, it is increasingly tempting to rely on it even for small tasks. Some interviewers have been known to include hidden text in a problem so that if the candidate copies and pastes it into an AI tool, the output will be incorrect. Always verify AI-generated output – and an interview is not the time to be relying on it in the first place.
How to prepare
To prepare, familiarise yourself with the company and any of their products you can access beforehand, and refresh your knowledge of the tech stack listed in the job description. It can also be helpful to look up the company on Glassdoor to find information on past interview formats and get a clearer sense of what to expect. If you know the names of your interviewers, looking them up on LinkedIn can reveal what disciplines they value, and any talks or posts they’ve shared that you can reference at the interview, or use as a springboard for questions to demonstrate genuine interest. If the interview involves live coding tasks, practice platforms like LeetCode are a great way to sharpen your skills.
Importance of communication
Communication is crucial in a technical interview. Interviewers want to understand how you think and how you approach problems, which means you need to talk them through your reasoning. Explain your initial plan clearly, and pseudo code can be a useful tool for outlining your approach before diving in. If you hit a roadblock, articulate why you may need to change direction and discuss the pros and cons of each approach. Demonstrating that you are considering edge cases and applying defensive programming shows that you can build robust solutions. This is as much a test of soft skills as technical ones: clear communication, patience, and comprehension are all highly valued qualities in a candidate.
The interviewer may ask questions throughout, or offer hints and guidance. This is an opportunity to demonstrate your listening skills and show that you are coachable, adapting to their suggestions and taking their feedback on board. Asking your own questions in return demonstrates curiosity and genuine engagement with the challenge.
Ultimately, a successful technical interview is about much more than writing flawless code. It is a chance to show who you are as a professional, how you think, how you communicate, and how you handle pressure. With thoughtful preparation, a clear and collaborative mindset, and the confidence to talk through your reasoning, you give yourself the best possible chance of leaving a lasting impression.
