Technical Lead interview questions

I've been engineering for nine years, the last three as a tech lead. Started as a developer at an Indian product company, moved up to senior engineer, and stepped into the tech lead role at my current Omani fintech three years ago. I lead a team of six engineers building our payments platform. My time splits roughly: 40% hands-on coding (architecture-critical pieces and code reviews), 30% technical direction and design, 20% people leadership, 10% stakeholder communication. I still believe a tech lead who doesn't code loses credibility fast.

I protect deep-work time for coding (mornings, no meetings). I take ownership of the architecturally significant pieces of the codebase so I stay current; I avoid letting myself become only a reviewer. I avoid being on the critical path for any specific feature; my code commitments should be optional from the team's perspective. Code reviews are non-negotiable; I review at least 60% of PRs because review is leadership in disguise. Stand-ups, planning, retros, and stakeholder syncs all happen but I'm strict about not letting meetings consume the day.

First, my reviews focus on architecture and approach, not nits. Style and formatting should be handled by linters, not reviewers. I look for: does this match the architectural patterns of the system, is the abstraction at the right level, are the failure modes considered, is the code testable. I leave nits at the bottom with 'optional'. I ask questions rather than assert wrong; 'why did you choose X over Y?' invites discussion. I aim to turn reviews around in 4 hours during work time, otherwise PRs pile up and morale drops. Review is teaching.

Honest accounting: I maintain a tech debt log with each item's cost (development friction, performance, reliability) and effort to fix. Quarterly review with my team to prioritise. We allocate roughly 20% of capacity to tech debt by default; spikes higher when debt is causing production issues, lower during major feature delivery windows. I push back on product when they want pure feature work for too long; debt that compounds eats velocity. Some debt is intentional and that's fine, as long as it's recorded; the dangerous debt is the invisible kind.

Lead with the business outcome. 'We're extracting payments into its own service so we can deploy improvements independently' lands better than 'we're adopting microservices'. I use analogies for complex concepts where appropriate. I check understanding by asking the listener to play back what they heard, then adjust if needed. I avoid jargon as a habit; if I need a technical term I define it the first time. The credibility of engineering with the rest of the business depends on this skill more than on technical depth.

For a tech lead role in Oman at senior level I'd target OMR 1,800 to 2,300 total package depending on the team scope and the technical complexity. I'm on 60 days' notice. Beyond pay I'd value the engineering culture; tech lead in an org that genuinely invests in engineering excellence is fundamentally different from tech lead in a feature factory.