Interview scorecard template

Software Developer interview scorecard

Evaluate Software Developer candidates across 4 weighted areas: technical proficiency, systems and trade-offs, evidence and rigour, and collaboration and communication. Technical proficiency leads at 35%, so check fluency in their primary stack: languages, frameworks, ORM or query patterns, Git branching, CI pipelines. Ask them to walk through a class or module they. Use the rubric to compare role-specific evidence consistently.

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TL;DR
For technical proficiency, look for evidence the candidate names specific libraries and versions, explains their own code line by line, and admits where they leaned on documentation or teammates. For systems and trade-offs, look for evidence the candidate describes real trade-offs with consequences: latency figures, database load, deploy complexity, and what they would revisit today. Apply the written 1–5 anchors to every answer, record the evidence behind each rating, and use the factor weights to reach a consistent overall assessment.
Complete evaluation framework

What to assess and how to score it

Review the evidence signals before interviewing. Then use the anchored descriptions—not instinct alone—to choose the score that best matches each answer.

01
Evaluation factor

Technical proficiency

35% weight

Check fluency in their primary stack: languages, frameworks, ORM or query patterns, Git branching, CI pipelines. Ask them to walk through a class or module they wrote recently.

Evidence to listen for

  • Command of the languages, frameworks, and data tools the role actually uses
  • Understands correctness, performance, and failure modes, not just syntax
  • Has opinions on testing and can justify them
  • Reads and reasons about code they did not write

Five-point scoring guide

1
Poor

Cannot work independently; fundamentals are missing.

2
Needs Improvement

Weak fundamentals; output needs heavy review.

3
Satisfactory

Competent for the role; needs guidance on complex or unfamiliar work.

4
Very Good

Strong practitioner; handles hard problems with little guidance.

5
Excellent

Names specific libraries and versions, explains their own code line by line, and admits where they leaned on documentation or teammates.

02
Evaluation factor

Systems and trade-offs

25% weight

Probe how they chose between a monolith and services, caching versus indexing, or sync versus queued jobs, and what the cost of that choice turned out to be.

Evidence to listen for

  • Reasons about scale, latency, cost, and failure before writing code
  • Names the trade-off they chose and what they gave up
  • Understands the data lifecycle end to end
  • Anticipates what breaks at ten times the volume

Five-point scoring guide

1
Poor

No thinking beyond the immediate task; no awareness of scale or failure.

2
Needs Improvement

Limited architectural awareness; struggles with design decisions.

3
Satisfactory

Works within an existing design; makes sound local decisions.

4
Very Good

Designs for scale and maintainability; articulates trade-offs clearly.

5
Excellent

Describes real trade-offs with consequences: latency figures, database load, deploy complexity, and what they would revisit today.

03
Evaluation factor

Evidence and rigour

25% weight

Test their approach to bugs and quality: unit and integration test coverage, logs, profilers, staging reproduction, rollback of a bad release they shipped.

Evidence to listen for

  • Validates results rather than trusting output
  • Knows how their work is measured and what a bad result looks like
  • Can describe a time their own analysis or model was wrong and how they caught it
  • Careful about data quality, leakage, and silent failure

Five-point scoring guide

1
Poor

Ships unvalidated work; no notion of how correctness is checked.

2
Needs Improvement

Validates superficially; misses obvious quality or leakage issues.

3
Satisfactory

Reasonable checks in place; rigour drops under time pressure.

4
Very Good

Validates thoroughly; can name a real error they caught in their own work.

5
Excellent

Cites a concrete defect, the evidence trail that isolated it, the test added afterwards, and measured improvement post-fix.

04
Evaluation factor

Collaboration and communication

15% weight

Assess how they handle code review comments, write pull request descriptions, break down tickets with product, and explain technical constraints to non-engineers.

Evidence to listen for

  • Explains technical work to non-technical stakeholders
  • Gives and takes code or peer review constructively
  • Documents enough that the work survives their absence
  • Aligns with team process rather than working around it

Five-point scoring guide

1
Poor

Cannot work in a team; resistant to feedback.

2
Needs Improvement

Communication issues create rework; lone-wolf tendencies.

3
Satisfactory

Adequate team member; documentation and review participation are light.

4
Very Good

Communicates well; reliable reviewer and collaborator.

5
Excellent

Gives examples of review feedback they accepted or pushed back on, and shows clear written habits in tickets and PRs.

Evidence-led prompts

Interview questions for a Software Developer

Use these prompts to surface evidence for the weighted factors above and compare candidates against the same role-specific criteria.

  1. 01

    Can you describe a complex project you worked on and your role in it?

  2. 02

    Have you worked on large-scale systems, and what were your responsibilities?

  3. 03

    Have you built applications on cloud infrastructure, and at what load?

  4. 04

    Describe your experience with version control and maintaining code quality.

  5. 05

    Do you have experience with test-driven development?

See the complete Software Developer question set
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