Software developer: job description, interview questions, and screening workflow

The generic advice for this role is "give them a hard coding challenge." At a small company, that tests close to the wrong thing. A scripted challenge is exactly the kind of problem AI tools are good at solving, and it says nothing about what actually breaks a developer hire on a small team: there's no senior engineer to catch a bad decision, no QA team to catch a bug before a customer does, and no one but this person standing between a production issue and your users at 11pm. The real question isn't whether they can solve a puzzle. It's whether they exercise good judgment and take ownership when there's no safety net behind them. This guide is built to screen for that.

What a software developer actually does at a small company

At a larger engineering org, a developer works inside a structure: a tech lead reviews their pull requests, a QA team catches regressions, a DevOps team owns the pipeline, and a product manager translates vague business asks into a clear spec. At a small software company or dev shop, most of that structure doesn't exist yet. One developer, or a small handful, owns a much wider slice of the stack with far less of a net underneath them.

The core of the job, in practice:

• Shipping features end to end, often from a rough or evolving spec straight from a founder or product owner
• Debugging production issues independently, without a senior engineer to escalate to first
• Deciding, on their own, when a technical shortcut is fine and when it isn't
• Maintaining and extending code they didn't write, often with little or no documentation
• Testing their own work well enough to trust it, since there's rarely a dedicated QA function
• Communicating technical tradeoffs to non-technical founders or stakeholders in plain language
• Knowing when to ask for help versus when to work through something alone

The technical bar matters, but it's rarely the differentiator at this stage. Most candidates who make it to an interview can write working code. What separates a hire that works out from one that doesn't is judgment under ambiguity, honesty about what they don't know, and whether they take real ownership when something breaks on their watch.

Job description you can post today

Copy this, then adjust the specifics (your stack, your team size, your remote policy) to match your company.

Software developer
[Company name] is looking for a software developer to help build and maintain our product. You'll work directly with our founder and small team, owning features from a rough idea through to something real customers use.

What you'll do
Build and ship features across [your stack, e.g. our web app and API]. Debug and resolve production issues independently. Maintain and extend existing code, including code you didn't originally write. Make technical decisions with real ownership, since there isn't a large team to check every choice against. Communicate tradeoffs and progress clearly to non-technical stakeholders.

What we're looking for
Solid hands-on experience with [your core stack]. A track record of shipping real, working software, not just coursework or tutorials. Comfort debugging something you didn't write, with little documentation to lean on. Good judgment about when to ask for help and when to solve something yourself. Clear communication, since you'll often be explaining technical decisions to people who aren't technical.

Schedule
[Insert hours, remote/hybrid/in-office policy, and any on-call expectations]

[Insert pay range, per your company's policy and any applicable state salary transparency requirements]

10 interview questions, and what a good answer sounds like

1. Walk me through the last non-trivial bug you fixed entirely on your own, no pairing, no review before it shipped. What broke, how did you find it, and how did you know it was actually fixed?

This is the core question for this role. A strong answer walks through a real diagnostic process: how they narrowed down the cause, not just what the fix was, and includes how they verified it, not just that they "tested it and it worked." A candidate who can't produce a specific example, or whose story skips straight from "found the bug" to "fixed it" with no reasoning in between, hasn't really debugged much alone.

2. Tell me about a time you shipped something and later found out it was wrong. What happened, and what did you do when you found out?

You're listening for ownership, not perfection. Everyone ships bugs. A strong answer names the actual mistake plainly and describes what they did about it. A candidate who can't recall a real example, or whose story shifts the blame elsewhere, is a flag for a role with no one else to catch their misses.

3. Describe a technical decision you made when there was no senior engineer around to check with. How did you decide, and what would you do differently now?

Good answers show real reasoning: what options they weighed, what tradeoff they made, and some honest reflection on what they'd change with hindsight. A candidate who claims the decision was obviously correct with no tradeoffs at all is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.

4. Walk me through how you'd approach a feature request from a non-technical founder that's described in vague, non-technical language.

This tests whether they can translate ambiguity into something buildable. Strong answers describe asking clarifying questions, proposing a smaller first version, and confirming understanding before writing code. A candidate who says they'd just start building based on their best guess may generate a lot of expensive rework.

5. What's your process for testing something before you consider it "done," when there's no dedicated QA to catch what you miss?

Listen for a real, concrete habit: writing tests, manually walking through edge cases, checking it against the original ask. "I test it myself" with no further detail is a weak answer for a role where they're the only line of defense before a customer sees it.

6. Tell me about a time you disagreed with a technical direction someone else set. What did you do?

You want to see how they handle disagreement in practice: did they raise it directly, with reasoning, or stay quiet and comply, or dig in and refuse to move. A small team needs people who'll speak up on real risks without turning every disagreement into a standoff.

7. How do you decide when to ask for help versus when to work through something on your own?

This surfaces self-awareness. Strong answers describe a real threshold: time spent stuck, whether they're blocking someone else, whether the risk of getting it wrong is high. A candidate with no real answer may either interrupt constantly or sit stuck for too long, both of which cost a small team more than they would a large one.

8. What tools do you use day to day, including AI tools, and how would you use them on this job?

Ask this plainly rather than as a trap. Most developers use AI assistance routinely, and that's not itself a concern. What you're actually listening for is whether they can speak specifically and honestly about their workflow, and whether they seem able to explain and defend the reasoning behind code in front of you, regardless of what helped produce the first draft.

9. Tell me about the last time you had to maintain or fix code you didn't write, with little or no documentation.

A strong answer describes a real process for building context: reading tests if they existed, tracing how the code was actually used, asking questions if anyone was around to ask. A candidate who's never had to do this, or who describes just rewriting everything from scratch rather than understanding it first, may struggle with the maintenance load that's a big part of this job.

10. Why a small company, rather than a bigger engineering org with more structure and support?

This surfaces whether they understand what they're signing up for. A strong answer names something real: more ownership, more variety, direct visibility into the whole product instead of one narrow slice. A candidate who can't articulate a reason beyond "it was the job that was open" may be underprepared for the ambiguity and lack of structure this role actually involves.

A scorecard you can score candidates against

Ten questions are only useful if everyone on your side is listening for the same thing. Score every candidate on the same six signals, so you're comparing evidence instead of comparing gut feelings.

How to screen software developer candidates without losing a week to it

Truffle is a candidate screening platform that combines one-way video interviews, talent assessments, and resume screening, so you can build a screening workflow around what actually matters for a role where AI-assisted and even proxy interviewing has become a real, documented risk in tech hiring. For the broader argument on why this shift matters, see our post on hiring tech talent when AI writes every resume.

Developer roles at small companies tend to pull a wide, uneven pool: people with real production experience next to people who look strong on paper but have only worked in a classroom or a tutorial setting. Volume plus that unevenness is exactly what a layered screen is built for.

A workflow that fits a small software company or dev shop:

• Resume screening first. Cut obvious mismatches on stack and hands-on experience before you spend live interview time on anyone. This is also where you handle volume, since a flood of applicants for one opening is manageable once you're not reading every resume yourself.
• A short one-way video interview, not a live panel round, for your first real look. Ask 2-3 of the scenario questions above, like the independent-debugging question or the ambiguous-requirements question, so you can hear how someone actually reasons through a problem before you commit any live interview time.
• Truffle's AI Check as a context signal, not a verdict. It flags patterns that suggest a response may have been AI-assisted, which gives you something specific to probe in the live conversation instead of guessing.
• A live conversation, ideally involving real code, only for candidates who clear the first two steps. Ask them to walk through and modify something they've already written, in real time. By this point you already know they can reason through ambiguity and debugging. The live conversation is for verifying it's genuinely them and for fit, not for finding out for the first time whether they can do the job.

Our resume screening and one-way video interview tools handle the first two steps in one place, with AI that surfaces your strongest matches against the criteria you set. You review the evidence and decide. It doesn't decide for you.

Common hiring mistakes for this role

Leaning on an abstract coding challenge instead of a real debugging scenario. A well-known style of algorithm puzzle is exactly the kind of problem AI tools solve well, and it tells you little about how someone will handle a production issue with no one to escalate to. Weight realistic, messy scenarios over textbook puzzles.

Not addressing AI use directly. Avoiding the topic doesn't make the risk go away, and treating it as an unspoken trap creates an adversarial interview for candidates who are being honest. Ask plainly what tools they use and focus your evaluation on whether they can explain and defend their own reasoning live.

No plan for who reviews their code once hired. If you're hiring because you have no senior engineer, that gap doesn't disappear on day one. Decide upfront how you'll get a second set of eyes on early work, even informally, before something ships to customers.

Over-indexing on stack-specific keyword matches. A candidate who's worked in a slightly different but related stack, and who shows strong debugging judgment and ownership, is often a better bet than a perfect keyword match with neither.

Skipping a live, in-the-moment conversation because a take-home or async submission looked strong. A written submission alone doesn't confirm who actually produced it or whether they can reason about it live. Pair it with a real-time conversation before you make an offer.