Hey, Prasad here 👋 I'm the voice behind the weekly newsletter "Big Tech Careers."
Asking questions at the end of an interview is crucial, as it remains an essential part of the evaluation process. In this two-part series, I will cover the different methods you can use to prepare thoughtful questions for interviewers.
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A participant in my Big Tech Interview Preparation workshop session asked:
"What should be the approach to preparing questions when the interviewer asks - Do you have any questions for me?"
I appreciate their phrasing, as they asked about developing an approach rather than requesting exact questions to ask.
During my one-on-one sessions, candidates often want me to tell them which questions to ask their interviewer.
I always respond:
"I won't give you specific questions. Instead, I'll teach you to develop meaningful questions on you own."
Since Big Tech companies typically conduct 4-8 interview rounds, learning to research and develop questions for each interviewer serves you better than memorizing a preset list.
Before we continue, a quick update on Big Tech Interview Preparation Workshop I completed in December 2024. Here is a recap in number:
20 dedicated attendees
15+ hours of live sessions, including:
6+ hours of core content delivery
5+ hours of Ask Me Anything sessions
4+ hours of group mock interviews
3+ additional hours of bonus AMA sessions scheduled for January
1 dedicated Discord channel for community interaction
I don’t have bandwidth to do the live workshops regularly. Soto scale, I'm planning to launch the workshop as a self paced digital course in February with a 50% discount if you pre-book before January 31st.
I prepared a list of 10 questions, two per interviewer, before my Amazon loop interview.
For those unfamiliar, the Amazon loop interview consists of a series of five interviews. When I interviewed in 2019, all five interviews used to take place on the same day, back-to-back, with a few breaks in between.
These are the four steps I followed to prepare for the questions I asked my interviewers:
Step 1: Key Research Components
Step 2: Company and role specific questions
Step 3: Interviewer-Specific questions
Step 4: Active Listening
In this article, I zoom into each of these steps and show how you can use them for your upcoming interviews.
I'll cover Steps 1 and 2 in this article and then walk you through Steps 3 and 4 in Part 2.
Let's start with Step 1 by understanding what you need to research to prepare your list of questions.
Step 1. Key Research Components
It's pretty straightforward and consists of three main areas:
Company background and culture
Role requirements and expectations
Interviewer background (when available)
Let's see what you need to research in each of these three areas:
1. Company Research
Start with a deep dive into the company's profile. Understand the company's core values and culture. Look for their mission statement, recent achievements, and current challenges. Pay attention to their market position, competitors, and any recent strategic moves. This knowledge helps you formulate questions about the company's future direction, culture, and growth opportunities.
2. Role Research
The job description is just the beginning. Identify key skills and responsibilities that might not be explicitly mentioned. Consider how this role fits into the larger organizational structure. This research enables you to ask specific questions about day-to-day responsibilities, team dynamics, and growth opportunities within the position.
3. Interviewer Research
If you know your interviewer's name beforehand, this research can be invaluable. Review their LinkedIn profile to understand their background, role, and tenure at the company. This information helps you tailor questions that are relevant to their expertise and perspective. However, keep these questions professional and focused on their experience with the company or insights about the role.
Now that you know what you need to research, let’s see to use this information to prepare list of questions for interviewers.
Step 2: Company and role specific questions
Through the questions you ask, you need to indicate that you have thoroughly researched the company and role. Your questions should also convey your genuine interest and excitement for the position.
While preparing for my Amazon loop interview, I learned the importance of thoroughly understanding the Amazon Leadership Principles and preparing stories that demonstrate them. Amazon's hiring philosophy is based on the belief that if a person has demonstrated these Leadership Principles through their past behaviors, they will be a good long-term fit at Amazon. I wanted to understand how people inside Amazon exhibit these principles on a daily basis.
So, here is one of the questions I asked:
"The best part of preparing for Amazon Interview has been understanding Amazon Leadership Principles. I've read that employees live and breathe them. Out of curiosity, I would love to know a couple of examples of how you or your team exhibit Leadership Principles on a daily basis."
Think from an interviewer's perspective, this question would likely impress them because:
It shows my initiative and thorough preparation - I’m not just asking generic questions.
By asking about their personal experience ("you or your team"), I’m making the conversation more engaging and showing interest in their perspective. The phrase "out of curiosity" makes the question sound genuine rather than rehearsed
I’m demonstrating that I care about company culture and want to understand how theoretical principles translate to daily work life
The question got the interviewer enthusiastic and I was able to sense the passion when they started answering. Their response was enlightening.
They shared how their team helped lower customer bills by rightsizing their Amazon EC2 instances. This answer was profound for me. Coming from a sales/consulting background, the idea of proactively reaching out to customers to reduce their spending was unheard of.
In my previous experience, the focus was always on finding opportunities for customers to spend more money on your products. But this example of customer obsession and earning trust left me spellbound.
At that moment, I knew this was the kind of company I would enjoy working for.
Pro tip: Make your questions thought-provoking so you learn meaningful insights about the company and team. Remember: while interviewers ask questions to evaluate you, you should ask questions to evaluate if the company is right for you.
I hope this has given you some insights into preparing thoughtful questions based on your research of the company and role. As I said, I don’t prefer to give away exact questions that people can ask interviewers, but here are couple of more examples to help you think the kind of research you can do and formulate questions around it.
Example 1: "I notice there are many open positions for this role globally. I'm curious about the onboarding experience - could you tell me about how new team members are brought up to speed? In your experience, what's the hardest part when starting out, and what works well for new team members?"
Example 2: "I understand this role requires balancing multiple responsibilities, from directly helping customers succeed to providing thought leadership and enabling others. How do successful team members generally prioritize and allocate their time across these different aspects of the role? I'd be particularly interested in hearing about any effective strategies that have helped who've been in this role for the past few years."
When you are preparing your questions, ask yourself the following:
Are you going to learn something insightful about the company/team/role?
Will the interviewer be excited to answer this question?
If the answers are yes, then you are in the right direction.
Coming Next
In Part 2, I'll dive deeper into how to delight the interviewer by tailoring your questions for them.
I'll cover the following topics:
Step 3: Interviewer-Specific Research
Research interviewer background
Prepare questions tailored to their experience
Create unique questions based on their journey
Step 4: Active Listening
Listen actively during the interview
Ask questions based on the discussion
Build on the conversation naturally
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