Management and Team Interviews
How to conduct effective technical interviews during due diligence
Interviews with the target's technology team provide context that documents alone cannot reveal.
Interview Types
Executive Interviews
Participants: CTO, VP Engineering, CISO
Focus: Strategy, roadmap, organization, key initiatives
Duration: 60-90 minutes
Technical Deep Dives
Participants: Architects, tech leads, senior engineers
Focus: Architecture decisions, technical debt, pain points
Duration: 90-120 minutes
Operational Reviews
Participants: DevOps, SRE, security team
Focus: Processes, incidents, monitoring, security
Duration: 60-90 minutes
Effective Interview Techniques
- Start with open-ended questions
- Follow up on vague or inconsistent answers
- Ask for specific examples
- Probe for "what keeps you up at night?"
- Validate document claims with verbal confirmation
- Note body language and hesitation
Key Questions by Role
For Engineering Leaders
- What would you change if you could start over?
- What's the biggest technical risk in the product?
- How would you scale the system 10x?
For Individual Contributors
- What's the most frustrating part of the codebase?
- How often do deployments fail?
- What documentation exists? Do people use it?
Key Takeaway: Interviews reveal cultural and process issues that don't appear in documents. Pay attention to what's not said as much as what is.