We surveyed over 50 hiring managers, and here’s what actually gets candidates hired in technical interviews

Technical interviews have become more structured over the last few years, though from a candidate’s perspective they often feel more unpredictable than ever. The format varies, the expectations shift and the feedback is rarely detailed enough to explain what made the difference.

To bring some clarity to that experience, we spoke to more than 50 hiring managers across engineering, data and AI teams and asked a simple question. When two candidates have similar technical ability, what makes one of them get the offer?

The answers were remarkably consistent, and they had less to do with syntax and far more to do with signal.

The strongest candidates treat the interview as a working session rather than an exam. Hiring managers repeatedly described how quickly they can tell when someone is trying to reach the correct answer compared with when they are showing how they think. The candidates who talk through trade-offs, explain why they are making a particular decision and acknowledge constraints create confidence. That confidence often outweighs whether the final solution is perfect.

Another theme that came through clearly is ownership. Interviewers are listening for evidence that a candidate has been responsible for something that mattered in a real environment. It might be a service, a pipeline, a model in production or a piece of platform infrastructure. What matters is the ability to explain how it behaved over time, what went wrong and what changed as a result. The depth of that story is often the deciding factor.

Preparation also looks different at senior level. Hiring managers are less interested in rehearsed answers and more interested in how well a candidate understands the context of the role. Candidates who have taken time to explore the company’s architecture, product stage and technical challenges are able to frame their experience in a way that feels immediately relevant. That relevance creates momentum in the conversation.

One of the more surprising insights from the survey was how often communication was mentioned. Not presentation skills, but clarity. Engineers who can explain complex ideas in a structured way make it easier for interview panels to align internally. That alignment speeds up decisions and increases the likelihood of an offer.

There is also a consistent pattern in how offers are lost. It rarely comes down to a lack of technical capability. More often it is uncertainty. When interviewers are unsure how a candidate will operate in their environment, they hesitate. Candidates who ask thoughtful questions about ownership, success measures and technical direction reduce that uncertainty and stand out immediately.

For candidates, this changes how interview preparation should be approached. The focus moves away from covering as many potential questions as possible and toward understanding your own experience in depth. Which systems you influenced, what decisions you made, how you handled pressure and what you learned from outcomes that did not go to plan. Those are the signals hiring managers are actively looking for.

What this survey reinforced is that technical interviews are not becoming more difficult. They are becoming more reflective of how work actually happens inside modern tech teams. They are designed to understand how someone thinks, communicates and takes responsibility.

At Tides, these are the patterns we see across successful processes every week. Candidates who treat the interview as a conversation about real work consistently perform better than those who treat it as a test.

For anyone preparing for a technical interview this year, the most valuable preparation is not another set of practice questions. It is the ability to tell the story of your impact with clarity and intent.