What's Your Super Power?

I've been in technology for a while now. In that time, I've interviewed my fair share of development talent, across many technical disciplines and with varying degrees of experience. Throughout these conversations, I have cobbled together some questions that go beyond standard technology boilerplate. Questions that give me a feel for the person behind the mask.

Part of this is selfish. During the process (and after), the question I ask myself the most is: "Could I work with this person?" The answer changes as I ask more and more questions, as the interview conversation progresses. At the end of the day, it's always about people (side note: I don't care how smart you are, jerks need not apply). Technology can be learned. Programming languages are just tools to solve a problem. Scrum, Kanban and Waterfall are tools to both bring people together and articulate our contribution to the rest of the business we serve.

One of my favorite questions is: What's your Superpower? The question itself needs some explanation, it generally sounds something like:

Everyone who joins a team brings something uniquely theirs. Something no one else has. Something special. I call this your "super power". What's yours?

Almost everyone smiles at this. Some of the smiles are uncomfortable, some are amusement, some are simple enjoyment of the question. Those who don't smile… well, trust that I am going to poke at that before our conversation is done. You can generally gauge someone's level of experience based on their answer to this question. Whether or not they've had a career of "year ones" or have actually thought about growing in the profession.

More junior candidates will usually struggle with the question, eventually coming out with the programming language they are most comfortable with. It's a hard question to answer when your major concern to this point was getting into the profession. It's a hard question to answer when you haven't had to reflect on and articulate your value to the business beyond "I write code".

Journeyman (or more experienced) developers will float somewhere around metalevel concepts. Things like: "solving problems quickly" or "I write my tests first" or "deep understanding of programming patterns". There is always a range here and some are well on their way to senior level enlightenment.

Senior developers get a little more complicated. We usually know a handful of development languages, recognizing the need for a tool that fits the job. We generally have a grasp of programming patterns through research, hard knocks, or a little of both. We should have a good grasp of our business domain and good business in general. Knowing the balance between writing professional software and solving the right problem at the right time.

My goal with that question is twofold. As I said, I want to know if I can work with you, maybe even for you one day. I also want to raise you up, I want you to think about your career and articulate it to yourself. Understand that this is a path, a journey, a way to enlightenment, and a taste of the future. But make no mistake, building technology is always about the people.

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn: What's Your Super Power?